Godeleva

ON ST. GODELEVA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR,

AT GISTEL, DIOCESE OF BRUGES, IN FLANDERS.

IN THE YEAR 1070.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Godeleva, Virgin Martyr, at Gistel in Flanders (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.

§ I. A view of Gistel, the Saint's country, birth, age, name, husband, martyrdom, and burial.

I premise a brief scheme of the things pertaining to St. Godeleva, and to be deduced more at length in this whole work, from which a more general notice at least of the places and persons may be presented at first glance to the eyes of readers. But that the beginning may be taken from the chief seat of the martyrdom and perpetual cult, thus the Illustrious and Consular Man Jacobus Marchantius describes Gistel and other things making hither, in his Commentaries on Flanders page 87: Gistel, praised by Marchantius, Gistel, an illustrious house, to which of old the surname belonged, passed by marriages into the family of Béthune and Luxembourg, together with the Bruges toll, attributed to the lords of Gistel, that with it as a kind of reward they might keep the Ocean flowing to Flanders free of pirates. By Count Brienne, a Frenchman, that he might more easily redeem himself from the captivity into which he had fallen in the year 1544, it was sold to Jean Charles Affaitadi, a patrician of Cremona, who traded at Antwerp. It is commended by the manufacture of Says a kind of cloth, to which the people of Gistel give the name, by the notable castle of the lord, by annual fairs in the month of November, and by a fertile field, no less than by the adjacent Benedictine female abbey, dedicated to the memory of St. Godeleva, which name signifies "Theophila" beloved of God, here strangled in the year 1070 by two domestic servants, twisting a napkin about her neck and throat, at the instigation of her husband Bertulf, of the illustrious race of Gistel, incited against his wife by his mother, hostile to her daughter-in-law—a wife noble by the stock of Londford and beautiful, but negligent of adorning and allurements, and preferring nothing to piety toward God [and] charity toward the needy; whose life and end Drogo, a monk and priest at that time of Gistel, described.

[2] Far more at length and more distinctly the Illustrious Man likewise, and [of] immense labor, Antonius Sanderus pursues the affairs of Gistel, more adorned by Sanderus, in his Flandria Illustrata volume 1, from page 329, whence we have judged that some things, opportune for the elucidation of the history, must be gleaned. Thus he depicts the place, expressed in an engraved plate: Gistel, the name to the town is from Stallum a stall, to which the origin [is] from the citadel, liberty from Charles the Good, privileges from Guy Dampierre, honor from the lords, the first circumvallation from the nobles in the year 1228; another fortification from Louis of Nevers about the year 1324, the eminence of the ditches from the senate in the year 1434, the building of walls elsewhere destined and begun by the citizens in 1540; plainly so that the town seems to have grown with the centuries, and to have ascended a single degree of majesty with each: named, privileged, walled-round, fortified, closed, walled in part. Lately and now it feels the fruits of civil wars, destitute of several of these, and showing only a castle, a monument of ancient elegance; which today ruin

threatens, empty of an inhabitant, the Lord alone being its dweller. Sanderus proceeds to describe the ornaments of the town and the families of its lords, concerning which Marchantius has said enough; and we deem the idea of the Godelevian arena to be here sufficiently set forth.

[3] St. Godeleva made it most celebrated: For neither all the things now enumerated, nor however many besides the praised Sanderus munificently heaps together, that is, the distinctions of Gistel, beget for the town so great a fame and nobility as of old brought and today still bring [it] the name, cult, glory, and continued miracles of St. Godeleva. Since indeed her egregious virtues of old rendered that Saint, and thereby Gistel too, most celebrated through all Flanders and nearly the rest of Belgium, whose admirable examples she left behind, under the beastly servitude of a mother-in-law and an impious husband, suffering not the communion of marriage but a hard martyrdom, at last crowned by shed blood: which prodigies soon followed, perennial through six whole centuries even to this day, both at Gistel, where the relics are kept, and at the medicinal fountain, among the ancient ruins of the abbey of the nuns, and at Bruges in the nunnery at the clotted blood, and in many other places, where the sacred remains of the same Saint are honored. And thence nearly the whole—I would dare to say—recommendation of Gistel and of the people of Gistel, which survives at this time throughout all Flanders and the neighboring regions, comes from this, that they rejoice in the sacred pledges of so illustrious a Saint, [and] on that title are yearly frequented by a huge concourse of people, flowing together from every quarter.

[4] whose country and parents we know; The country of St. Godeleva all the writers who have made mention of her assign to be the territory of Boulogne, or rather Bologne, neighboring on our Artois, once a most illustrious lordship of the Counts, among whom was that Eustace, begotten of St. Ida, parent of three sons most renowned in the history of the Holy War—Eustace, Baldwin, and especially the Christian Hercules, Godfrey of Bouillon, whom to have named is to have praised. And indeed I make mention of Count Eustace chiefly for this reason, that in his time St. Godeleva ought to have first beheld the light, or at least to have lived, [she] being begotten of a father Wifrid, Huifrid, Heinfrid, or Humfrid, [and] a mother Ogina, Ogena, otherwise Odgiva or Odgeva, honest and honored parents, in the castle of Londefort, or Lonfort, which our Jacobus Malbrancus, in volume 2 On the Morini, book 8 chapter 59, calls Hondefort, situated between Wissant and Wasconville, at Wasconingawalla, today the river Selaque, in the Boulonnais. More express marks of the country and lineage of St. Godeleva no one, so far as I know, has hitherto brought forth: whence Marchantius dug out the Lonford stock, I confess I am ignorant, unless he supposed that, as from Gistel came the surname "of Gistel," so from that castle, the place of her birth, a surname was given to the Godelevian family. Certain is the Saint's country; the appendages of her stock can be admitted; not likewise the consanguinities with other Saints of Belgium, which the piously credulous somewhere dared to feign. Now we shall explore the Saint's age with what likelihood we can.

[5] Rightly and elegantly, in the place already cited, the praised Malbrancus abridged the Life written by Drogo, not likewise a certain epoch of her age. who without doubt never saw the other Legend, amplified by an anonymous interpolator, [and] certainly thought it least of all to be consulted. And indeed in Drogo's Legend there is no character certain or express enough to be found, whence it may be lawful to define closely the age of St. Godeleva; but in the Anonymous, in those things which pertain to the times, who would dare trust safely enough, while most confidently he determines many things, and indeed wrongly, being the more suspect of fiction, or at least of freer amplification, the more he presumed to superadd to Drogo from his own store. Thus he begins the life compiled by himself: Godeleva, a virgin dear to God, of illustrious lineage, from the territory of Boulogne, the castle of Londefort, near the village of Wierre of Hinfrid, drew her origin. Her father [was] a soldier, Heinfrid by name, but her mother Ogena; both noble by birth, but nobler by virtues, begot this happy offspring, like a most bright star, for this dark age, in the time of Leo IX, the Roman Pontiff, namely in the year from the Lord's Incarnation 1052, which was the twelfth year of Henry the Emperor the third, but the twenty-first of Philip the first of that name, King of France, and the seventeenth of Baldwin of Lille, who was called the Benign, seventh Count of Flanders.

[6] From marking chronological notes the Anonymous had far better abstained; The received opinion is that she died in 1070, for, that I may confess it, the times of Leo IX and the seventeenth year of Baldwin of Lille agree well enough with the year of Christ 1052, [but] the author errs in the years of Henry the Emperor; more shamefully he names Philip King of France, most shamefully the twenty-first year of him, since then he was not yet born, being first brought into the light in the following year 1053. Thus everywhere unskilled writers slip, while they deprave sincere Acts by their additions. To me hitherto it has not been permitted to be so happy as to dig out from elsewhere the certain times of the birth of St. Godeleva, of her betrothal, of the duration of the marriage, or of her slaying: for since Drogo, as I was already saying, has altogether neglected to express these, I do not see how writers, some centuries later than himself, could do it more safely, as will be weighed a little more fully below. In that Legend by the greater author, number 58, Count Baldwin is indicated, before whom the Saint's parents complained of the hardness of her husband Bertulf: but neither from thence can any distinct epoch be apprehended. That I may dispatch the matter in few words, most received today is the opinion, strengthened by the authority of Meyer, in the Annals of Flanders book 3, thus writing at the year 1070: But on the day before the Nones of July in the same year, at Gistel St. Godelepha [was] strangled by her servants, at the command of her husband Bertulph. She was a most holy woman of Boulogne, sprung by stock from the castle of Lonford, of which then Hemfrid and Odgina, her notable parents, held the dominion. Bertulph, afterward converted to penitence, lived austerely and died in the monastery of St. Winnoc of Bergues. He was a rich and noble man, of the country of Gistel, at the impulse, as they report, of his mother incited to so atrocious a crime. The life of this Saint the monk Drogo, at that time a priest of Gistel, lucidly wrote to Bishop Ratbodo.

[7] but it is difficult to arrange the earlier years. The things which concern Bertulf's conversion, Drogo, and Ratbodo will be weighed elsewhere; let it be permitted here to subscribe to the Meyerian epoch, as most likely, which also Malbrancus above adopted, likewise Marchantius, Sanderus, and others everywhere—let it be permitted, I say, to subscribe to that epoch, and to attach the glorious end of St. Godeleva to the said year 1070. Let him elicit thence the preceding space of her life and arrange it in series, who can; I confess I would rather be silent than vainly divine. That the time of her wedlock was not so long, I will easily admit; but why the Anonymous, author of the greater life, contracts both its beginning and its end to the age of that Count Baldwin, who governed only three years, dead in the same year 1070 as St. Godeleva, I do not see. Let the Saint have been given in marriage about eighteen years old, [and] have suffered the tyranny of her husband six years or a little more; thus the beginning of her life could be referred to the year 1045, [and] her slaying while she was in the twenty-fifth year of her age: but for these things it does not please [me] to change even a word. Now the Anonymous, so often cited, is not so scrupulously conversant in these matters; for, the miracles which happened at the Saint's death having been narrated, [and] Bertulf's feigned tears, and the things necessary for the preparation of the funeral, he thus proceeds at number 81: Attended by a great troop of nobles, (Bertulf) executing the last honor of the deceased, in solemn order performing the funeral pomps, procured the blessed little body to be buried in the church of Gistel, in the third year from the contracted marriage, on the day before the Nones of July, on the second feria, which was the Octave of the Apostles Peter and Paul, in the year from the Lord's Incarnation one thousand and seventy, of Henry IV the Emperor the thirteenth, of Philip II of that name, King of the Franks, the seventh year, and of Baldwin the Peaceful, Count of Flanders, the third and last; for he too died in the same year.

[8] The anonymous writer of the life for the most part errs, Again nearly all things deceive, for neither did the sixth of July in the year 1070 fall on the second feria, but on the third, under the Dominical letter C, and the initial letter of the month G. It was the eighteenth year of Henry King of the Romans, the fifteenth of his empire; of Philip, not the second but the first King of France, the twelfth. I admit the last note, of the third and last year of Baldwin of Mons. Let these specimens suffice, that it may openly appear how not-light a writer he ought to be who tries to reduce the facts recorded by himself to the true chronological characters. With like unhappiness he pursues a pretended, I know not what, canonization, made at Rome (as he contends) in the year 1084, in his Legend number 99 and last, where he connects that year 1084 with the eighth year of D. Hildebrand, who is also Gregory VII, the Roman Pontiff, with the twenty-seventh of Henry IV the Emperor, with the twenty-first of Philip II King of the Franks, and the twelfth year of Robert the eleventh Count of Flanders, surnamed of Friesland: in which last he does not so greatly err; but in the rest, after his manner, he stumbles: since indeed the year already said, 1084, in which we esteem the sacred body to have been raised, is to be composed with the twelfth year of Gregory, the twenty-ninth of Henry; of Philip, not the second again but the first, the twenty-sixth. But let these things be said here by the way, on occasion of establishing the age of St. Godeleva, which I do not see can be defined with certainty and determinately by any characters.

[9] The praised Malbrancus, in the chronology prefixed to his work On the Morini, not sufficiently to be reconciled with Malbrancus's reckonings. formed for himself a system far different from the Anonymous, when at the year 1061 he thus notes: Godeleva, sprung of the nobles of the Boulonnais, is betrothed to Bertulf of Gistel, who most wickedly treats his wife. He cites the Life, from which I do not see by what reasoning he thought he could elicit that epoch, no more than the following, where at the year 1067 he says Godeleva fled to her parents, who in vain strove through the Count and the Bishop to compose the matters. He again takes to himself as surety Drogo in the Life, in whom I confess I have hitherto not been able to dig out a certain chronological character. In the year of the martyrdom he agrees with us; namely that St. Godeleva, after innumerable molestations, was strangled by her servants at Bertulf's command in the year 1070. Let us grant for a while that Malbrancus has here happily touched the matter, certainly much more happily than the Anonymous; it will be reconciled with our opinion not so difficultly. Let the Saint have been born in the year 1045, and have now attained, not the eighteenth year, but, with the Anonymous, about the fifteenth or sixteenth, when she was given in marriage to Bertulf: she will have lived, on that hypothesis, a virgin, a wife, and a widow, not only through three years, but through eight or nine years: these things please me more; than the everywhere headlong reckoning of the Anonymous, to which I do not suffer myself to be induced to subscribe; while he contracts the Saint's age to eighteen years in all, [and] her marriage scarcely to three. But neither does it please [me] to contend for that opinion of Malbrancus, since I esteem it, equally as the others, uncertain; in this part much more likely, because it leaves the Saint those years in which we may understand her, a little more fittingly, to have been more robust for devouring so many hardships, miseries, straits, and mockeries.

[10] The name of Godeleva is written in more than one way, but that all the ways are to be referred to one and the same Saint Explanation of the name of St. Godeleva. is beyond doubt. Drogo constantly expresses "Godeleva," rightly explaining that name in Latin as "Dear to God," others "Theophila," from the Flemish Godlief, for the sake of euphony and of the feminine gender Godelieve, whence some "Godelieva"; although in our Aldenburg manuscript, genuine, as we think, in the beginning it is written Godeleph, as also in some place has the Anonymous interpolator, who nevertheless for the most part with Drogo restores "Godoleva." Thus everywhere other Belgians, except Meyer, to whom it was more pleasing to render the found name Godeleph or Godoleph by Godelepha and Godolepha, the French standing for Godelene or Godelaine, whence Godelena or Godolena, just as we read of Godolenus abbot of Nobiliacum in the first century of the Benedictines. It would be plain that the nomenclature of the Flemings should be followed in this part, unless it were established that St. Godeleva was born in that region of Belgium or Picardy in which it is not credible that at that time the Flemish tongue was in use, but pure and simple ancient Gallic, Guallic, Wallic, or Wallonic, all of which signify precisely the same, W being equivalent to G, as I remember to have somewhere sometime demonstrated: but that among the French a name wholly Flemish was given to anyone, to many will not straightway seem to be admitted. But that difficulty is not so great but that it may be conveniently solved, if thou shouldst say that the place of the Saint's birth was near enough to the Flemish parts, that a communication of names could be had. If that please not, say that she was of two names, called otherwise among her own people of Boulogne, otherwise among the Flemings, to whom perhaps, from her perpetual study of pleasing God, from so heroic an exercise of virtues and the miracles which followed, it seemed good to impose the name of "Dear to God" or "Pleasing to God"; and that anyone would the more readily believe, because perhaps then no more than now was it set in custom for noble matrons to be designated by their proper names. However thou turn [it], there are so many Gallic names, formed far otherwise by the Flemings, that we judge it superfluous to adduce examples.

[11] What the people of Gistel once were; That the husband of St. Godeleva, Bertulf, whether by his own nature, or at the instigation of his ferocious and raging mother, was inhuman and savage, the whole Legend of the Saint teaches. Nor indeed does it seem a wonder, if at Gistel at that time was found a man endowed with barbarous manners, since in the Acts of St. Arnulf, Bishop of Soissons, apostle of that part of Flanders, most piously deceased at Aldenburg in the year 1087, in Mabillon's sixth Benedictine century, part 2, page 537 number XVII, we read thus: Within the bounds of the parish of Gistel, which lies under the diocese of Tournai, there is a certain vein of black and as it were reddish earth, which, interspersed with frequent marshes, cannot easily be crossed. But in these places dwells a kind of men, always exulting in atrocity, like the common herd of the Scythians. Meyer at the year 1083 reads: a most atrocious kind of men, who seem to surpass all the ferocity of this (Scythian) nation by their native animosity; nay rather he does not doubt to call all the people of Gistel of that time a Scythian nation. His words in the same place are: The people of Gistel, a Scythian nation, yield to none in fierceness. A crude indeed and black description of those men, but which seems not to have been proper to the people of Gistel alone in that century.

[12] what sort of man was Bertulf, husband of St. Godeleva, Which certainly anyone will easily admit who remembers that at that time through certain, nay through most places of western Flanders, intestine discords, inveterate hatreds, daily homicides, and insatiable effusions of human blood disturbed the peace and quiet of the whole region; as the praised Acts of St. Arnulf more lucidly explain from page 535 number XIV. However meanwhile thou judge of the people of Gistel in general, that Bertulf, husband of St. Godeleva, was hard and barbarous, is as manifest as it is certain that at his impious command his most innocent wife was cruelly strangled. Hear Malbrancus speaking of him in the place cited above: He was sprung, he says, from the Normans (who were called Scythians, and hither introduced the house of Gistel) and proclaimed Baldwin Marquis of Flanders his kinsman, a man of a vast mind. But concerning the rest of Bertulf, whom Marchantius says to have converted that atrocity into eminent repentance, and the chastisement of a mailed skin, in the monastery of St. Winnoc of Bergues, there will be below a proper place of speaking; here it remains that we exhibit also a brief image of the martyrdom and burial.

[13] by whose command she was strangled and buried That the tyrannical servitude of our Saint under so cruel a husband was long enough, both the Legends of Drogo and of the Anonymous proclaim and explain; although the latter, as I was saying, everywhere too much contracts the reckoning of the times: moreover that she obtained the true laurel of martyrdom the innocent shed blood proves, soon after her death adorned by God with so many signs and miracles, just as also her sacred remains, deposited at Gistel, so that as dear to God, as a Saint, as a wonder-worker she was recognized by the people far and wide round about, and, as powerful by her merits with God, invoked and made patroness in various necessities, the inhabitants urging in emulation that her life and miracles be consigned to the monuments of letters. On the same day on which she was strangled, Drogo asserts her burial was hastened, the Anonymous describes the apparatus, and, both in her death and in her burial, there were certain signs, of which Drogo made no mention: this both esteemed most worthy of memory, that, because bread was lacking which might be dispensed for the health of the soul, they went to buy grain: but the same grain was for gain to its buyer, for it so increased of itself, reduced into flour, that it exceeded measure and quantity, and the buyer marveled at the deed of the sign, saying: Praise to thee, God; to thy honor she was liberal, but according to her power she lived for the poor, this too thou hast divinely demonstrated by this miracle. Now various heads, pertaining to the Lives and their authors, to the cult, relics, festivals, miracles, and other prerogatives of St. Godeleva, are to be weighed severally.

§ II. On the writer of the first and purer life of St. Godeleva, which Laurentius Surius published, the diction being changed.

I had for a long time bestowed much labor, that I might somewhere obtain a sincere manuscript copy of the Drogonian work, To Drogo, the writer of the life of St. Godeleva, such as it is certain Laurentius Surius once had—a man not best deserving in the matter of the Acts of the Saints, in that he did not transmit the venerable monuments of antiquity pure and intact to posterity, as concerning the Legend of St. Godeleva he himself of his own accord confesses in these words: The diction Brother Laurentius Surius almost wholly changed. Of that liberty of Surius enough has been said elsewhere in these Acts. I bore indeed a worthwhile reward, when after various inquiries I at last sometime lit upon the Aldenburg codex, which, unless I am most vehemently deceived, exhibits Drogo sincere, genuine, and incorrupt, as will be demonstrated in paragraph IV of this Commentary, and from the arguments there to be adduced anyone will easily gather, whoever will not grudge to compare our edition with that of Surius, [and] will detect manifest truncations in the latter, which do not indeed altogether corrupt or invert the text, but certainly recede far from the native and germane simplicity of Drogo. But here are not to be anticipated the things which we have undertaken to discuss in the said paragraph, being about in this dissertation chiefly to inquire this, who that Drogo was, the writer of the Acts of St. Godeleva, that we may detect from certain monuments.

[15] That the appellation of Drogo was once common enough, various works are wrongly attributed let it be beyond controversy: that there existed several homonyms in the eleventh century, will be made manifest from the following. Whether some writers were led by scruple, lest they should attribute the same name to several, I indeed know not: this is certain, that several Drogos were fused into one, both by bibliographers and by historians, transcribing from one another without examination. Someone must have shone before Possevino, perhaps Arnold Wion, to be cited below, whom he himself followed in the Sacred Apparatus, when to Drogo the Belgian, monk of the monastery of St. Winnoc … then pastor of Gistel, lastly Bishop of the Morini, he attributes various works, which can in no way regard Drogo the Prelate of the Morini. Possevino [was] copied by Casimir Oudin, and without doubt by others, whom to collect and enumerate would help nothing. Vossius, on the Latin historians book 2 chapter 45, page 373, fell into the same pit, into which perhaps he dragged the famous Elias du Pin, in his most recent collection of ecclesiastical Writers eleventh century, page 109, where he establishes that the monk of Bergues died in the year 1070, the very same in which St. Godeleva died, and nonetheless wrote her life; which is diametrically repugnant to the preface of the true Drogo.

[16] which regard other synonyms; The same stone rolled no more happily certain Belgian writers, among whom Miraeus in the Belgian and Burgundian Fasti thus roundly enounces: The history of Godeleva Drogo, monk of St. Winnoc of Bergues, afterward Bishop of the Morini, wrote accurately to Ratbodo, Bishop of Tournai (who raised the body of the blessed Martyr in the year 1088), and it is read in Surius. Arnold Wion in the Tree of Life, book 2 chapter 47, page 341, has almost the very same things word for word, which the praised Possevino seems to have received from him. Both wrongly cite Molanus, in the additions to Usuard on 5 August: For although he there does not rightly confound the monk of Bergues with the Bishop of the Morini, yet he rightly and accurately distinguished the monk, priest of Gistel, writer of the life of St. Godeleva, from both the already said. Hence cease to marvel, if thou find Swert and other popular writers hesitating in the same mud, who, no previous examination being made, did not doubt to adopt the things found in anyone whomsoever.

[17] confused also by Malbrancus, with the already said. This I marvel at more in our Malbrancus, otherwise a diligent examiner of Morinian affairs, who himself too most openly defends that huge confusion, book 8 chapter 29, where he declares Drogo himself, from a monk of Bergues and curate of Gistel, to have become Bishop of the Morini, in these words: Drogo was the Bishop's name. First he arose from those Bertinian ascetics whom Rodericus transmitted to Bergues, to lay the foundations of the Winnocian family and discipline. But as he was supported by the aids of doctrine and eloquence, when the noble village and town of Gistel lacked its curate, the eye of Bishop Baldwin was straightway cast upon Drogo, and there he wished to prove his pastoral work, which, although by now proved by manifest indications through occasional intermittent functions, nevertheless surpassed the expectation of all, and gave in the eyes of all those documents which excited both Baldwin, still surviving, and King Robert, and several abbots, and the Bishop, especially of Amiens, to whom he had once been of the office of a cleric commended among a few, to draw the man out from the little town, and to constitute [him] on the lofty seat of the Morini. But when in the same book chapter 59, page 798, he asserts that Drogo, a monk and presbyter of the church of Gistel, wrote the life of St. Godeleva the martyr, although, slipping in memory, he connects incompatible times, he not obscurely insinuates that the same Drogo, whom alone we know as pastor of Gistel, is everywhere indicated.

[18] Drogo Bishop of the Morini However anyone may wish to interpret his words more benignly, from the first confusion at least he cannot altogether be freed: for although we admit that Drogo the Bishop was first a monk (who also, on Malbrancus's testimony, was a cleric of Amiens), yet it can by no means be conceded that he was a monk of Bergues, much less curate of Gistel, constituted such namely by Baldwin, Bishop of the Morini, in which parish there was never any right to the Prelates of the Morini, inasmuch as it was always subject to the see of Tournai. That in these matters I may proceed closely and distinctly, I contract the whole matter into three articles. Let the first be: Drogo the Morinian Bishop is different from Drogo the monk of Bergues, of St. Winnoc, and, what follows thence, altogether another than Drogo the priest or curate of Gistel. Article II: Drogo, otherwise Draco, monk of Bergues, of St. Winnoc, was not, nor most probably could have been, curate or priest of Gistel, and therefore neither the writer of the life and martyrdom of St. Godeleva. Article III: Drogo, writer of the life of St. Godeleva, younger than both the already said, was a monk at St. Andrew's near Bruges, and he alone and truly is the author of the Acts of St. Godeleva; which will be examined of set purpose in the following paragraph: the prior two articles [are] here first to be established.

[19] The proof of the first article depends on the true knowledge of the state and age of the more celebrated Drogo, is far different from our Drogo; the Morinian Bishop, whom I see everywhere, from a monk made Prelate, called the jubilee Bishop, even by Malbrancus, inasmuch as he held the episcopate about fifty years, sometimes exercised and tossed by adverse chances. This [man], from a monk of Sithiu, as Mabillon declares in the Benedictine Annals volume 4, book 56, page 361, from the year 1030 already, many years before St. Godeleva was born, was ruling the Morinian church. But the same Mabillon adduces there, page 368, a charter of the aforesaid Drogo, by which he enfranchises certain altars granted to the people of Sithiu, in which the forty-sixth year of his episcopate is composed with the year of Christ 1070 at Iperius. Which is an argument, he says, that its beginning is to be sought from the year 1024, or at least the following. Finally, volume 5, book 65 page 117, from another instrument he evinces that Hubert, likewise Bishop of Thérouanne, succeeded in the place of Drogo, already from the year 1077, so that beyond that time the episcopate of Drogo cannot be protracted, who certainly was fifty years Bishop, if he possessed the infulae from the year 1025 to 1077. From these somewhat differs the reckoning of Malbrancus, who moreover does not dare to produce the times of Drogo beyond the year 1078.

[20] These things being premised, that we may perspicuously understand whether that Drogo, nor does he better coalesce with the monk of Bergues, the Morinian or Thérouanne Bishop, can rightly coalesce with the monk of Bergues, we must inquire whether the said characters agree with the aforesaid monk of St. Winnoc. That I may briefly and clearly explain this, I copy the words of Mabillon in the sixth Benedictine century, part 2, page 112, where, treating of the history of the translation of St. Lewina to Bergues of St. Winnoc, the author being Drogo, a monk of the same place [and] contemporary, he has thus: The history of the translation of St. Lewina into the monastery of St. Winnoc of Bergues wrote Drogo the presbyter, and indeed a monk of St. Winnoc, as appears not only from the title, but also from the very context of the history. This Drogo Meyer, and from him Molanus and Miraeus, think to have been he who then held the see of the Morini. But many things persuade the contrary: first, the writer of this history calls himself only a presbyter and monk: nay even the very epistle to Rumold the abbot manifestly indicates that that work is not the offspring of a Bishop. Nor is it to be said that Drogo, before he was raised from the monastery of Bergues to the episcopate, wrote this history of the translation.

[21] the writer of the translation of St. Lewina, For Drogo indeed in the year 1058, in which this translation happened, had already for many years administered the church of Thérouanne. Then the writer of this history, who by his own attestation was present at the translation, asserts that it was made by Bovo, the Eastern Bishop, Henry reigning in France, and Drogo Bishop of the Morini being alive. And in the second book he observes that a paralytic at Lisfingas, Drogo Bishop of the Morini being present, was healed by the merits of St. Lewina; all which things indeed demonstrate that another than Drogo the Bishop himself was the author of this work. The same argument the praised Mabillon had handled in the third Benedictine century part 1, page 302, in the Preliminary Observations to the life of St. Winnoc, whose writer of miracles he shows to be that same Drogo, or Draco, monk of Bergues, different from Drogo the Bishop; which is read there at more length number 2; so that consequently the works of this monk were attributed to the Morinian Bishop only through error. They are deceived at all events, as again the Benedictine Annals rightly [say], volume 4, book 61, page 583, deceived, I say, who confound this Drogo the monk with Drogo the Bishop of Thérouanne. And this is what we had undertaken to demonstrate in our first article.

[22] who is not known to have been pastor of Gistel. Nor less are they deceived, who wish this Drogo the monk to have been curate or priest of Gistel, that in that way they may make [him] author of the Legend of St. Godeleva, which has the name of Drogo, monk and priest of Gistel, prefixed in the Surian title, which is the other article, from that head now sufficiently proved, that, once the confusion of the Drogos of Thérouanne and of Bergues is removed, at the same breath must fall the whole pretended Gistel priesthood, wrongly ascribed to the monk of Bergues; since it is known that there was never any right to that monastery in the parish of Gistel; whereas, on the contrary, it is established from faithful instruments that that church was then subject to the diocese of Tournai, nay pertained to the patronage of the Bishop himself, until it was granted to the monastery of St. Andrew near Bruges, and, after various vicissitudes, more fully explained in the manuscript Chronicle of St. Andrew, the matter was at last so ordered that alternately the Bishop of Tournai and the abbot of the aforesaid monastery use the right of collator, which I hold ascertained to persevere even today.

[23] And from that monastery at last, not from elsewhere, must the true Drogo the monk be drawn, Our Drogo the monk was at St. Andrew's. who composed the Acts of St. Godeleva, younger than the monk of Bergues by thirty, if I mistake not, and more years: for since the latter in the year 1058 was collecting the miracles of St. Lewina, then most probably our Drogo of St. Andrew was not yet born, as thou wilt sufficiently perceive from the following. Add, that the Acts of St. Godeleva could not at all have been written by that monk of Bergues, the very preface sufficiently teaches, since the author there expressly professes that he writes many years after the Saint's end, inasmuch as he relates only those things which he heard from those who today are also witnesses, and who saw them, so that they must most certainly be drawn back to the end of the eleventh century, whereas meanwhile the age of Drogo of Bergues seems unable to be produced beyond the year 1070, which was the last also to the Saint herself, some consigning his death to that very year. But from these things it is sufficiently manifestly and clearly concluded, what we assumed to be proved in the second article; namely, that Drogo, otherwise Draco, monk of Bergues, of St. Winnoc, was not, nor most probably could have been, curate or priest of Gistel, and therefore neither the writer of the life and martyrdom of St. Godeleva, but another far later than he, namely a monk of St. Andrew near Bruges and, on Sanderus's testimony, a priest, not only by office but also by country of Gistel; of whom, since more things are to be said, we shall discuss the last article, pertaining to him, in a special paragraph.

§ III. It is shown that the true author of the life of St. Godeleva was Drogo, a monk at St. Andrew's near Bruges.

I will not deny that, the matters not yet being more laboriously weighed, I had almost fallen into the last confusion, now refuted, of the monk of Bergues and the priest of Gistel, Sanderus shining before, sought from which, [me] doubting, Sanderus drew [me] away, a torch being here held before [me] in his Franconatus from page 329, where, describing Gistel, he exhibits the characters of Drogo, plainly alien from the monk of Bergues. He therefore, speaking of the sacred things of Gistel: The church of the Mother of God, he says, was by Lambert in the year 1118 handed over to Alard, then Prior of St. Andrew's near Bruges, whence one of the religious, being sent, cared for the divine service. Such was Drogo, author of the life of Bl. Godeleva (it sounds "Theophila") the martyr, and of her miracles performed at the tomb. A little lower he again says: Here (at Gistel) was born Drogo, monk and priest, who wrote to Radbodo Bishop of Noyon and Tournai the life and death of the holy martyr of Christ Godeleva, strangled by two servants of Bertulf of Gistel, at the command of Bertulf himself, husband of Godeleva. Before he had noted, page 293, treating of the foundation of the monastery of St. Andrew: About the year 1118 flourished Drogo, monk of this monastery and pastor of Gistel, who wrote the life of Bl. Godeleva the martyr. And these are the things which led me into further disquisition, trusting nothing to the words of Sanderus, unless the source should lie open from which I deservedly suspected him to have drawn his own, namely from the records of that very monastery of St. Andrew.

[25] Using therefore the favor and patronage of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Henri Joseph, and those monuments were found the present Bishop of Bruges, and the labor of our distinguished collaborator, the very Reverend and Renowned D. Ludovicus de Wale, Cathedral Canon and secretary to the aforesaid Most Illustrious Bishop, I obtained that by which the whole matter will be marvelously elucidated. I shall presently subjoin the instrument, as it was transmitted to me, described from the autograph by the hand of Wale himself, namely from a parchment codex containing the Chronicle or annals of the monastery of St. Andrew, put together from various monuments at the beginning of the sixteenth century, inasmuch as they are dedicated to the Reverend Lord Joannes Assetius, most worthy abbot of the same monastery, whom it is established to have been the twenty-seventh abbot of the aforesaid monastery, the sixth of the same forename, from a monk of St. Vedast and provost of Aspres, who obtained that dignity through the free resignation of his predecessor, and first applied himself to the monastery with great pomp, and a retinue of noble lords spiritual and temporal, on 25 May, namely the day of Urban Pope, on which day, in that year, was the solemnity of the Lord's Ascension, namely in the year 1525, so that the age of the Chronicle may thence easily be gathered, which whether it was composed before or after the coming of the said abbot, I have not ascertained.

[26] in the aforesaid monastery of St. Andrew, The very codex, written in a wholly Flemish character, I examined and discussed a little more accurately, while I tarried at Bruges a few days, intent on collecting the Godelevian matters. Behold the beginning: Here begins the Chronicle of the monastery of St. Andrew near Bruges, of the Benedictine Order, composed by Arnulph Goethals, monk of the same monastery. He in the prologue warns that he most laboriously collected his own from corrupt leaves of letters, from the inscriptions of corroded tombs, and the chronicles of other monasteries, [and], I suppose, with the best faith so scrutinized the monuments of his own monastery, that the truth of the whole narration is placed in safety. Certainly in those things which I ran through cursorily, concerning the holy war or Crusade, on occasion of which the monastery of St. Andrew took its cradle, at the command of Count Robert; then in its very beginnings and first Provosts, nothing greatly occurred which with

the history of that time is not rightly composed. That I may silently pass over the rest, not making hither, the title of chapter V is: On those things which were done in the times of the Priors or Provosts of ours, before an abbot was elected, for about 86 years. Among these he mentions in order, in the second place, Alard, of whom he thus writes to our purpose fol. 14, whence the praised Wale had before transcribed his own.

[27] which sufficiently manifestly demonstrate Our religious Father and instructor Rodulph therefore being taken from us, as we have said before, and assumed to a higher grade, there succeeded to him, not so much by the prelacy of governance as by the imitation of a most holy conversation, a venerable Father, by name Alard, who strenuously governed our very monastery for many years, and enriched [it] with many temporal goods. For that most diligent man, considering that the exact rigor of regular discipline could not long subsist without an abundant provision of temporal goods, studied with the greatest solicitude to succor the brethren in this; and among the other monuments of his most excellent memory, he approached the Most Reverend Bishop of Tournai and Noyon, the Lord Lambert, who had succeeded Baldric (of whom we made mention in the foregoing) in the same bishoprics, seeking from him that he would grant to him and his successors the church of Gistel, namely the altar with the tithe and its other revenues, as hitherto the church of Tournai had possessed it; for to the right of that church the church of Gistel itself pertained; under a yearly appointed price: which, as he faithfully sought, he effectually obtained; a yearly price of eighteen marks of silver being appointed, to be paid at three terms, in each year, namely six marks of silver on the feast of Bl. Remigius, six on the feast of the Purification of the Bl. Virgin Mary, and six on the vigil of the Apostles Peter and Paul: but whatever of emolument could grow to us in the same parish of Gistel, by divine grace, by our own labor or the largess of the faithful, without any calumny, should accrue to our subsidy.

[28] These things were done by the counsel and assent of Robert, archdeacon of the aforesaid Bishop Lambert, and of the other clerics of the church of Tournai, that the aforesaid Drogo wrote the life of St. Godeleva. whose interest it could be, and were strengthened by authentic letters, likewise confirmed by Apostolic authority by Pope Calixtus, in the year of the Lord 1118. These things were also confirmed by Simon Bishop of Noyon and Tournai, who had succeeded the aforesaid Lambert in the same bishoprics. And when now all things had been duly ordered, there was sent to govern the church of Gistel, in temporals and spirituals, a religious man, Drogo by name, a monk of this our monastery, who strenuously administered the burden enjoined on him, to the great emolument of our church. But it happened at that time that most frequent miracles were done at the sepulchre of the holy virgin Godeleva, who a few years past, by the palm of martyrdom, had ascended the heavenly kingdoms: whence the same Drogo, much entreated by his parishioners, wrote the life of that martyr Godeleva in a fitting discourse, as he had received it from the mouth of those who had beheld with their eyes her most holy life and most innocent death. There follow the molestations subsequently created for the monks by Anselm Bishop of Tournai, at last the composition entered into with his successors, which even today preserves to each party at Gistel its rights.

[29] If a man not unlearned and in any way skilled in our Flemish history had read these things, They are not greatly to be regarded, he would not have written so roundly to a friend, on occasion of my doubts transmitted to Bruges: It is therefore certain that Drogo, monk and priest of Gistel, first writer of the life and miracles of St. Godeleva, was never nor could have been a monk of the monastery of St. Andrew near Bruges, inasmuch as it only began to be built up in the year 1098. How easily these things may be reconciled, will appear below. About to prove his assumption, he introduces something paradoxical, when he dares to assert; that first of all it is established that the abbot of St. Andrew received the right of the pastorate in Gistel only four centuries after the death of St. Godeleva. Let him read, I beseech, the chronicle already recited by us, and he will be a little better instructed. But that, he thus proceeds, it is commonly said in these parts that our Drogo was a monk of St. Andrew near Bruges, could have come to pass from this, that long afterward, perhaps in the fifteenth century, a certain monk of this monastery, who was also pastor of Gistel, wrote a more ample life of St. Godeleva. But it is an error that this monk was called Drogo, but more truly Sanderus reports that he was called Ostrogo. It was not for the man to divine, that he might rightly understand the mind of Sanderus, by whose judgment the cause long since fell, who feigned many things like these too liberally.

[30] But I esteem it to appear sufficiently manifestly from what has been deduced above, what things can be objected against, that there was no other writer of the Acts of St. Godeleva besides this one and only Drogo, a monk at St. Andrew's, and, if we believe Sanderus, of Gistel by country. And these things indeed seem plain: not so certain circumstances, here now to be weighed and explained, those being neglected which were objected in the preceding number. It can be asked, by what reasoning that Drogo wrote the life of the Martyr, as he had received it from the mouth of those who had beheld with their eyes her most holy life and most innocent death; how, I say, Drogo of St. Andrew could conveniently do this, if he undertook the care of the church of Gistel only after the year of the Lord 1118? Thou wilt press more sharply, if thou shouldst say that the Legend of St. Godeleva cannot be ascribed to Drogo, inasmuch as it is dedicated to Ratbodo Bishop of Noyon and Tournai, whom it is established was carried off from life at Bruges by a nearly sudden fate in the year 1098, twenty whole years before Drogo was sent to govern the church of Gistel. Another will contend that the aforesaid life was without doubt published, made public, and read by Ratbodo, before he proceeded to the elevation of the body: inasmuch as he ought to have been instructed from such a life concerning her deeds, virtues, and miracles; but who would feign it likely that Drogo wrote before the year 1084. Thou seest, reader, what intricate knots intervene in a matter which seemed placed beyond all controversy. Therefore let us gird ourselves to dissolve them in order.

[31] from various appendages of the matter itself, As to the last, the scruple of those men must once be plucked out and removed, who think that in whatever canonization of St. Godeleva, rites, ceremonies, and solemnities similar or next to those of today intervened, and therefore that a life was straightway written, processes instituted, authentic documents collected, which were not only read and examined by Ratbodo, but carried to Rome, to be approved by the supreme Pontiff and his brother Cardinals … who by unanimous consent inscribed Godeleva in the catalogue of the Saints, as the Anonymous interpolator devises at more length, number 99. All these things I call a pious fiction, usurped by many recent and unskilled writers, and boldly inserted into various Legends. That Ratbodo, in the last times of his life, reached the borders of Italy, I find in the Sammarthani; that he was ever at Rome before, no one, that I know, has handed down: nay the plainly opposite thou wilt find in the Annotations to the Prologue of our Drogo, to be produced below in its place. Nor indeed is he to be esteemed to have undertaken so long a pilgrimage for the sake of that canonization, who by the most received custom of that century could decree some cult to the Saints, Rome unconsulted, by the mere elevation from the earth, as I have also said elsewhere against the most groundless narrations of the aforesaid Anonymous and of the more recent Offices. To me from what has been said, and from the very work of Drogo, it seems certain that no life at all, at least not a Drogonian one, had yet been written, when the body of St. Godeleva was elevated in the year 1084 by Ratbodo.

[32] not difficultly soluble, Nevertheless the second circumstance must be saved, that our Drogo inscribed the Life composed by himself to Bishop Ratbodo, since he most expressly professes this in the prologue, thus beginning: To the Lord Ratbodo, by the grace of God Bishop of Noyon, Drogo, a monk and unworthy priest, wishes the good which surpasses every good. Whence it is consequent that the life was written before the year 1098, in which Ratbodo ceased to live at Bruges, and therefore many years before, in 1118, the care of the church of Gistel was committed to Drogo. This difficulty, at first front more entangled, easily unravels itself, if thou shouldst observe a little more attentively that Drogo calls himself indeed a monk and priest, but not yet pastor or curate, nay not even priest of Gistel; of which thing a trace can be found neither in the prologue nor in the whole work thereafter. Drogo could certainly have been a monk and priest for twenty and more years, before he attended to that pastoral care, [and] could during that time have written that life, by love toward his country alone, at the asking of friends, before he was sent to govern the church of Gistel. For neither does he anywhere assert that he did it at the asking of his parishioners, which the author of the Chronicle of St. Andrew wrongly supposed, but, as a better witness is Drogo himself; wearied by the prayers of many and frequent exhortation … I was compelled to commit to writing the martyrdom of St. Godeleva: or as in our edition; by the most frequent exhortation of many of the faithful … I was compelled to describe the martyrdom of St. Godeleph. I understand those wearyers, entreaters, and compellers to be Drogo's friends and countrymen, who exacted it from him while he was a priest and a monk, then laden with no care of souls, certainly not yet sent by his superior Alard to govern the church of Gistel.

[33] Let us say boldly that Drogo wrote those Acts, the Chronicle of St. Andrew being explained. Bishop Ratbodo yet living, to whom he could most conveniently have offered his little book in his last excursion to Bruges in 1098, about twenty-eight years after the death of the holy Martyr, when he could most truly say what he attests in the cited prologue: But the things which we have written, that they are for certain so, we have received from those who today still survive, and beheld them with their own eyes: or as we read: But we indeed the things which we have written, that they are so, from those who today are witnesses, and who saw them, have heard. And thus vanishes the first question, arguing an incongruity in this, that it supposes Drogo to have written entreated by his parishioners, and thus after the year 1118, namely 48 years after the martyrdom of St. Godeleva, at which time it is not at all likely that many suitable witnesses survived at Gistel, who had beheld with their eyes the most holy life and most innocent death of the Martyr. But all things square most aptly with the year determined by us, 1098; whence all the things which are mentioned in the extract of the Chronicle are to be understood to have been done by Drogo before he performed the office of curate or pastor, by Alard's authority, at Gistel, and in this way there remain explained all the difficulties which seemed more entangled for composing the times of Drogo of St. Andrew.

[34] Further, that the epoch of the Drogonian Legend cannot be defined otherwise than we have done, The matter is again proved from the Acts themselves, nor could it opportunely enough be feigned that it was written before the elevation of the sacred body, Drogo himself will teach in Surius number 9, in our genuine edition number 26, where he connects times which certainly did not precede the elevation. For narrating that a contracted boy was restored to health by the merits of St. Godeleva, he thus subjoins: The boy's name was Algotus

. Delivered thence to letters, when he had come to man's age, ascending little by little, he was ordained Deacon. I do not think a miracle is here indicated as performed in the very year of St. Godeleva's death, which even if we should grant, before Algotus, then a boy or infant, came to man's age and was ordained deacon, more than fourteen years must have intervened; for Drogo speaks of an ordination made long since; it is plain therefore that the life could not have been written before the elevation, which we said above must be attached to the year 1084. If to these thou shouldst join and admit the last words of the Surian Legend, in which he mentions the elevation made, in which he treats of the daughter of Bertulf healed, and the monastery built, in which the snowy gore, etc.; thou wilt perceive clearly enough that the composition of the Legend, which could be adorned in a very short time, was deservedly by us joined with the last age of Ratbodo.

[35] It remains that we correct not one error, which crept into the Benedictine Annals. The inadvertence of the author, otherwise most erudite, and the Benedictine Annals are corrected. left it thus written in the general index of volume V: Drogo, Bishop of Thérouanne, wrote the life of Godeleva; there referring to page 256 b, where nothing similar is found, but where other things occur no more founded. In this same year, he says, there was founded near Ostend a female monastery of our Order, namely in that place where Godeleva, wife of Bertulf, eighteen years before had been strangled by her raging husband. But her body this year 1088 was raised from the earth by Drogo Bishop of Thérouanne, [and] translated into the same monastery. All these things can be deleted, for neither is anything hitherto sufficiently established concerning the beginning of the foundation of the monastery of Gistel; but that Drogo Bishop of Thérouanne in that year 1088 raised the Saint's body from the earth, Mabillon could not write except by a signal lapse of memory, who, as we showed above, composed the death of that Bishop with the year 1077. But what right, however we allow him to have survived in that year 1088, what right, I say, could ever have belonged to that Bishop of the Morini over Gistel, subject to the Bishop of Tournai? I esteem that these things flowed from the preconceived opinion concerning Drogo of the Morini, as author of the life of St. Godeleva, which we showed above can in no way subsist. What at last is added, concerning the body translated into the monastery, the people of Gistel, perpetual possessors of the sacred deposit in their own temple at least up to the sixteenth century, would not sufficiently digest.

§ IV. Which life was written by Drogo, whether that which Surius published, or that which is given by us from the Aldenburg Manuscript?

That the author of the Life of St. Godeleva, Drogo the monk of St. Andrew, A question doubtful enough for a long time, we have now with certainty enough detected, we esteem; it is not yet so clearly plain which Life or Legend, among several bearing the name of Drogo, was truly put together by that writer. Lest various copies, whether of the Offices of the church of Gistel, or of the monastery, or others, immensely augmented and interpolated, be brought into the midst, I shall restrict the whole question to two chief copies. The first is exhibited to us by Laurentius Surius, whose diction he confesses of his own accord that he almost wholly changed; the other the praised renowned Wale procured from the monastery of Aldenburg, and that a manuscript, in a mean form in 12mo, written in an abbreviated and difficult Belgic character, in which, besides the life of St. Godeleva, are contained a Legend of St. Ambrose; a sermon on the life of St. Arnulf; a Dialogue on the miracles of St. Peter the Apostle, wrought through his relics deposited at Aldenburg; the life of St. Augustine; a Legend on the beheading of St. John the Baptist, the life of St. Giles the abbot; the passion of the holy Martyrs Maurice and companions; likewise of SS. Cosmas and Damian; the life of Bl. Jerome; the life of St. Gall; the passion of the eleven thousand Virgins, and of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, with one or another little tract of no great moment. Let these things be said for the knowledge of the codex, which indeed I would not dare to pronounce older than the sixteenth century, but such that in it I shall plainly persuade myself to have most probably found the ancient Life, as it was first written by Drogo, after an accurate examination of both copies.

[37] which of the two Legends was to be preferred, There pleased first, and, that I may confess the truth, there pleased more, the long-since-received edition of Surius, correct and neat enough, altogether void of the byplay and figures of preachers, so that in a brief and succinct discourse are had all things which can be said truly to regard the history of St. Godeleva. A doubt was subsequently thrust in by the ecclesiastical Offices, or the hymns, antiphons, lections, responsories, and other very ancient things of the old Breviaries of the nunnery of Gistel, now translated to Bruges, transmitted to me at Bruges, which showed openly enough that they were taken not from the Life such as Surius published, but from another far older and a little more verbose. When at last it was permitted to run over to Bruges, and to inspect more inwardly the very codex of which we treat, then indeed grew the doubt, which Legend I should esteem to be preferred, whether the Surian or that of Aldenburg. There pressed on [me] a most received argument, that the old Legends ought to be esteemed the more sincere, the more they are circumscribed by a briefer compass of matter; since therefore the Surian edition excelled by that prerogative, I inclined almost to that part, that I should believe it purer than the Aldenburg manuscript. I explain my sentiments natively and sincerely, that it may appear how not lightly or rashly a judgment is passed by us concerning writings of this kind.

[38] Returned home, I got leisure, that, the moments being longer and more diligently weighed, from an accurate collation of both, I might discuss the matter afresh, and since that Aldenburg life, depicted in a brutish and deformed character, must be described by me that it might be fitted to type, I began more and more gradually to observe, that more indeed of words and pious sentences is given in the manuscript, but yet neither any period nor any little word is found which anywhere interpolated, changed, or vitiated the history itself even in the lightest degree; so far that in the whole marrow of the things narrated, both Legends agreed in every way, as, this notice being premised, will become most manifest to the reader as well as to me from the collation of both. This step being placed, by a most probable consequence in matters of this kind, I deduced that the Aldenburg manuscript Legend is not later than the Surian; since it is most rare for any younger writer to leave untouched the substance of the things narrated by an earlier [one], and to superadd nothing to the things found, as they well know who have been exercised even a little in this arena, and it will appear more when we shall have come to the larger Life, written by an uncertain author and most fully amplified.

[39] But since Surius asserts so roundly that he changed almost the whole diction, the question decided in favor of the Aldenburg codex. what was readier than to think that this Legend-writer took upon himself this business, not only that he might express the less elegant, longer, and sometimes obscure diction of Drogo in a more polished style and a clearer discourse, but also that he might altogether cut away all the byplay, not greatly regarding the series of the things done, and which Drogo had more verbosely adorned, by his not-to-be-praised liberty in these, so that out of the whole Drogo he took only those things which uniquely pertained to the Saint's deeds, passion, and miracles. That the praised Surius did thus altogether, will most easily be detected from several places, unless I am vehemently deceived, by anyone moderately learned, who shall have weighed both histories not carelessly: besides that in the so-often-said edition there is added at the foot a clause, which no one will admit to have flowed from Drogo, who will observe more attentively what that writer aimed at in his whole work. But now from the collation of both Legends let us elucidate a little more clearly the things not yet sufficiently illustrated.

[40] Let both prologues first be compared, presently it will appear For the evidence of the whole matter that both the sense and many words of each are altogether the same, so that it cannot be doubted that the one writer saw the work of the other; but that the discourse of the Aldenburg codex is much longer, in which Drogo, as it is permitted to suppose, addresses his Bishop, for the sake of veneration, more officiously, with formulas usual enough at that time, but which to Surius's age, no less than to this our own, would seem more insipid, and which he himself, perceiving that they could be absent, without any loss of the rest, judged that those alone should be preserved which more compendiously and neatly explained Drogo's purpose. And this most approved conjecture the words to be cited more often thrust in anew, that "Brother Laurentius Surius changed almost the whole diction." However it be, that Drogo wove his exordium in one or the other manner ought to be beyond all controversy, so that it cannot sufficiently be understood what that Anonymous writer means, who subsequently adorned the longer Legend of St. Godeleva, when in his number 98, or the penultimate, he foists other words upon Drogo, asserting that he took his exordium thus: The benignity of the Almighty calls each sex to his mercy, which I esteem added from a place common to all holy women, since in the rest he refers the true sense of the Drogonian prologue plainly and entire. Now let us run through both Legends in few words.

[41] The chief heads of each are weighed. Our two numbers, 2 and 3, so agree with the first paragraph of Surius, that only and mere diversity of style is observed. Proceed to 4, 5, and 6, the Aldenburg codex has nothing whereby it differs from Surius, except the moral sentences here and there contracted by Surius in his paragraph 2. Again the numbers 7, 8, and 9 of the manuscript deduce a little more pathetically the things which Surius has embraced in his paragraph 3. Number 10 agrees, even in the very words, with Surius's paragraph 4. But number 11 contains nothing which cannot truly be said to be proper to Drogo. The beginning of Surius's paragraph 5 differs nothing from our 12 and almost 13: but in numbers 14, 15, 16 the Aldenburg Drogo is more verbose, so that Surius deservedly thought some things should safely be cut away. From numbers 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 take away one or another exclamation, and thou wilt find that they most aptly accord with Surius's paragraphs 6, 7, and 8. In the rest the sense of each is equal, only in words for the most part dissimilar: the same prodigies of a part of the earth turned into precious stones; the same altogether both in kind and in number the miracles, so that a greater conformity of both copies could scarcely be desired. The chief difficulty, about the last paragraph of Surius, remains to be dispatched.

[42] The last clause of Surius to be disowned, Our Aldenburg Legend is concluded in the miracle of the woman preparing a dye on a feast day, most grievously punished and miraculously freed; in the edition of Surius there is superadded: In the year of Christ 1088 the body of St. Godeleva was elevated at Gistel by the Lord Ratbodo, Bishop of Noyon and Tournai, on the third of the Kalends of August. But the daughter of Bertulf by his second wife, since she was blind from birth, washing her eyes from the water where the holy woman of God was submerged, was illuminated, and there built a monastery of Virgins, warring under the rule of St. Benedict, to the honor of God and St. Godeleva, whose snowy gore, which flowed from her mouth and nostrils in the submersion, is preserved in the same monastery, for the perpetual memory of the matter and

a sign of the virginity of the same holy woman of God. These things never seemed to me to savor of Drogo, and this clause alone, not found in the Aldenburg codex, would most evidently show that this our Legend is older and consequently purer, if anything were contained in it which could not in some way be explained, or composed with the age of Drogo at all. But since we excuse the error in the year 1088 elsewhere, but all the rest could plainly have happened before the year in which we esteem Drogo to have written, namely before 1098, not once did I hesitate, doubtful what must be decreed concerning that whole paragraph of Surius. That Drogo, to say it again, wrote after the Saint's elevation, is most persuaded to me; but that that writer neglected in his Legend the elevation at which so many men, even then living, had been present, will not seem likely enough to many. The same reason fights for the illustrious miracle, wrought in Bertulf's blind daughter, which also without doubt happened before the same Drogo had thought of writing the Saint's life. Of the monastery, then at least more probably begun, he could no less certainly testify, for thus the series of things seems able most easily to be ordered.

[43] I have not yet been able to perceive sufficiently whence Mabillon drew what he above so confidently asserted, although the series of things seems to favor him, that that monastery of Gistel took its beginning in the year 1088, unless he thought it must be gathered from the adduced clause of Surius, that in the same year hand was set to the work, in which the sacred body is there supposed to have been elevated. Falsely indeed; but as for the rest, that the work could have been begun about that time, would thus be rendered likely. From the more augmented Legends, whether the Latin or the Belgic, and perpetual tradition, it is held that Bertulf, after the martyrdom of St. Godeleva, soon passed to other nuptials, and from a second spouse begot that daughter, who, born blind, about the ninth year of her age, washing her eyes from the water in which the holy woman of God was submerged, was illuminated. Let Bertulf have married a wife in the same year 1070 in which the Saint perished, [and] the daughter could have been nine years old in the year 1080: he himself, afterward touched, whether from this and other miracles, or on occasion of the elevation, or for any other cause whatever, by inward grief of heart, could about the year 1086 have bidden farewell to the world, so as to put on, penitent, the monk's habit at St. Winnoc of Bergues, which we shall say in its place, having left, whether of his own accord, or by a penitence enjoined by legitimate superiors, deserved for washing away the parricide, all his goods, and those destined for founding a monastery; which the daughter not long after committed to execution, now about the eighteenth year of her age: in which succession of things and times there is nothing which greatly offends; but nothing also, that I may candidly confess, which can be established by certain monuments or arguments.

[44] And though we should grant that all things happened in those years, or the next following, before 1098, from the argument prefixed to himself by Drogo: it will not yet be consequent that the clause of which we treat is Drogo's own, inasmuch as he had taken upon himself nothing less than to describe those things which were then being done under the eyes of all; since in his very prologue he expressly and clearly professed that he was compelled to commit to writing the martyrdom of St. Godeleva, or as he speaks more expressly in our Aldenburg codex: First, of what parents she was born, and, now marriageable, to what man she was betrothed, and by whose snares and by whom and how she was martyred. These are the three heads which Drogo had undertaken to describe, and which he diligently executed, some miracles also being superadded, which might suffice to prove her sanctity. In vain therefore would anyone exact of him that he should pursue the Saint's elevation, the healing of Bertulf's daughter, and the other appendages there, then, I suppose, most known to all, which did not at all pertain to the life and martyrdom of St. Godeleva: so that on this argument alone anyone could deservedly deny that the controverted clause can be attributed to Drogo, which without doubt was afterward added by another, and thus the purer work of Drogo is that which we shall subjoin below from our Aldenburg Manuscript codex.

[45] This opinion the author of the Belgic life, faithfully published in the year 1629 under the name of Drogo (for that which had before been made public in the year 1619 [is] the very interpretation of the Surian Legend;) which the editor of the last Belgic Legend confirms. this, I say, that author confirms, a learned man and, I suppose, constituted in dignity, who had been present at the visitation of the sacred body in the year 1623; in his vernacular preface most holily attesting that he applied all diligence, that he might dig out from wherever a sincere Latin copy of the Legend of Drogo, since he had openly detected that the Surian work had been greatly contracted and vitiated. Which at last being found, he says, I took care to translate anew into the Belgic tongue, and, for the sake of clarity, I distributed into various chapters. Whence he obtained his copy he omitted to indicate, his own name also being concealed, which hitherto it has not been permitted me to learn; but if he himself truly had in hand the genuine offspring of Drogo, it is no less certain that our very Aldenburg Legend is the sincere and genuine writing of Drogo, since both agree from head to foot entirely and perfectly, the clause at the end also being omitted, concerning which we were just now disputing. We are confident therefore that this our edition will be welcome, the primitive phrase of the writer being preserved, which in its native simplicity was never subjected to the press. Now let us proceed to the greater Legends, the Latin of the Anonymous and the Belgic.

§ V. On the Anonymous writer of the more augmented Legend, translated into Belgic and amplified, afterward not much better contracted.

The unknown Anonymous, writer of the grander life, This is another Life of St. Godeleva, never, so far as I know, hitherto published in its primitive Latin tongue, thrice more augmented than the aforesaid Drogonian, which the author, whoever he was (for he most studiously dissembles his name, state, condition, and age), certainly had before his eyes, expressly premising in his prologue: Yet from the several things, which either Drogo left, first writer of the Virgin's Life, or which the truthful report of approved [men] taught, or at least, though very few, to which probable conjecture assents, gathering some, in a succinct and common style, to the praise of Almighty God and the honor of his Virgin and Martyr Godeleva running through, we shall labor to flee prolixity, the mother of tedium. Thou hast the words of the speaking gleaner, not obscurely insinuating that he had censured some things which had been passed over by Drogo, the first writer of the Virgin's Life: and that partly from the truthful report of approved [men], partly from probable conjecture, which we have detected him to have used a little too licentiously. Both, however, would be admitted without much difficulty, if he had a little more exactly redeemed his faith, than in those things which he subjoins: for that in a succinct and common style … he fled prolixity, the mother of tedium, no one will ever concede who shall have unrolled that whole Legend with the attention with which we [did].

[47] For it is a work well long, written in a most intricate and nearly illegible character, a grammarian, orator, and poetaster, which had to be described by us not without tedium, divided into chapters and numbers, and illustrated in various ways; I am deceived if it can be read patiently enough by any learned man. The author is beyond measure verbose, sometimes a battologist vain repeater, stuffing his Legend with so many byplays, inductions, moral discourses, that for the most part thou wouldst think thou wert hearing a preacher, not a historian. He very often importunely mixes profane things with sacred, splendidly professing himself a grammarian and a poetaster, sometimes so far advanced that he dared to call his Saint the daughter of Jove and the sister of Phoebus; which things sometimes thrust upon me a suspicion not unfounded, that he perhaps acted as a schoolmaster in the town of Gistel, while there matters stood and flourished, as the histories of the country report they once stood and flourished, Sanderus testifying that it was once a town very populous and adorned with buildings, but now nearly worn down by the injuries of wars, and such that, with neighboring Aldenburg, and certain others, towns in Flanders having suffered those calamities of the times, it deserves to be restored by royal munificence and liberality, through immunities and privileges. Truly, however diffuse the writer into commonplaces, [and] though he very often have occasion of betraying himself or his country or his office, nowhere does he open even a chink through which an approach may lie open into the knowledge of the man: Nor does he less solicitously cover his age, which nevertheless I esteem I have to some extent uncovered.

[48] There is with me a volume well large in manuscript, in which this our Legend, translated into Belgic, [he seems to have collected his materials in the middle of the fourteenth century:] is extended in a wonderful manner, and hence was taken that which, published in the year 1619, even today is worn in the schools which we call trivial, in the hands everywhere of boys learning their first elements. In that manuscript Legend, as well as in the printed [one], toward the end I find that a certain Cleric of Gistel made it from Latin into Belgic in the year of the Lord 1349; whence it certainly follows that our gleaner writer adorned his work before that year. But how much before in time? I do not esteem it much; for since without doubt the people of Gistel were most eager to read the life of their holy Patroness, which under the hands of the new writer had so greatly grown, that it surpassed the Drogonian by three and more of its parts, but very few in that town understood Latin; I am indeed not difficultly induced to believe that in that very fourteenth century, perhaps about the year 1340, why not later, why not in the very year in which it was composed in Latin, it first beheld the light, and from that time, the briefer Legend of Drogo being set aside by most, was soon admitted into the ecclesiastical Offices, and, translated into Belgic, began to be worn in the hands of all, the more gladly received because the Drogonian was not only longer, but swelling with unheard-of prodigies, much also more marvelous.

[49] It would be very grim to discuss the whole work, or to put under one view here its prolix discourses, but he wished to be too knowing, digressions, paraeneses to various states, and that kind of profuse bypaths: they would sufficiently weary readers, even moderately learned, so that there is no need to augment the tedium. For I have not deemed it alien from our purpose to indicate beforehand cursorily those things in which this Legend exceeds the other, not now by the mere pigments of the oratorical art, the long windings of words and figures, but also by the very things manifoldly superadded to Drogo. Most things I shall note cursorily, the beginning being taken from the Anonymous's chronology. I have already said that Drogo's Legend, otherwise true, germane, and genuine, is, according to the custom of that century, so ordered that it is not easy to elicit the reckoning of the times from it; so that unless the prologue clearly expressed the age of Bishop Ratbodo, whatever he left committed to writing concerning St. Godeleva could be drawn back no less to the beginnings of the eleventh century than to its end: for, as I have also noted elsewhere, the simple appellation of Count Baldwin determines nothing, since we know from elsewhere that from the beginning of that century the Baldwins successively held power in Flanders. While the Anonymous wished to bring light to these things, he poured on mere darkness. I have sufficiently advised above that he was unhappy in designating the characters of the times, which I know not whence he heaped together.

[50] while he superadded the characters of the times to Drogo; Hear now how skillfully and distinctly he reveals the whole series of the Saint's age, two hundred and more years after she had departed from the living. The birth of St. Godeleva he confidently affixes to the year from the Lord's Incarnation 1052, as thou hast above in the first paragraph, confirming all things with such appendages, that thou wouldst suppose a man most skilled in chronology to be pouring forth oracles, which, weighed by a just criticism, are for the greater part detected as fallacious, as we have demonstrated in their places. No less decretory are the things which he ordains in his life number 20, commemorating the solemnities of the nuptials, which were begun, he says, in the fifteenth year of the Virgin's age, etc. Early enough indeed, for the custom of the country. So tender an age of the Saint he could not have gathered from Drogo. The martyrdom is consigned to the year 1070, and thus the whole life is circumscribed within scarcely eighteen years. To me indeed it is not credible enough that by so many persecutions, molestations, hardships, calumnies, and contumelies, as that author fully accumulates; it is not, I say, credible that so tender a Virgin could have sufficed to endure so many injuries: nor would he more persuade that she poured forth speeches so wise as he everywhere ascribes to her: finally, that all these things happened in the course of scarcely three years, I know not whether anyone would esteem likely enough. Let us indicate the rest.

[51] adding also very many other things, The first two chapters of the Legend, whether they be from the truthful report of approved [men], or from probable conjecture, I would not easily define; this is certain, that the whole narration concerning St. Godeleva's mercy toward the poor is to be taken, as a probable conjecture at the least, from the Drogonian life itself, at least in those places where the Saint is shown, even from the least little portion of bread, allotted to her by her savage mother-in-law and impious husband, to have always dispensed the middle part to the poor; whence it is not obscurely given to be understood that mercy grew with the Saint, which without doubt she exercised from her entering age. Whether God willed her to be manifested by such illustrious miracles, let the faith be with the author and the report, if thou wilt, truthful, of approved [men], which that he could have had, however difficult we confess it to believe, certainly no one would say impossible. They are recorded by an author who wrote about two centuries after the Saint's martyrdom, and thus from the tradition received at Gistel in his time, which is not to be crudely rejected, yet having the less of likelihood the more it recedes from the times of Drogo, whence prudently and sensibly pronounced the praised publisher of the Belgic lives in the year 1629, that the tenets of the Anonymous cannot be esteemed endowed with that weight of authenticity with which those things ought to be received and believed which were faithfully handed down by the contemporary Drogo.

[52] which were unknown to the earlier [writer;] The things which in the third chapter are adduced concerning the patronages procured from everywhere from Bertulf for obtaining St. Godeleva, as also the amplifications of the fourth chapter, do not so greatly exceed the limits of likelihood, and are thus supposed by the orator from probable conjecture; although there will not be wanting those who in all these things miss the writer's prudence, in that, indulging too much in a certain poetic frenzy, he rushes headlong into many things, most confidently vending, not what was done, as the history of Drogo does, but what could scarcely have been done. The history deduced in the fifth chapter, concerning the birds driven into a barn, has nothing which altogether surpasses faith, although it was neglected by Drogo, and could certainly have been transmitted from the truthful report of approved [men] to the writer's age. There are still shown, and were exhibited to me in person, those monuments, near the old nunnery, which why I should call into doubt I do not at all see. There stands a chapel on a hill, planted with trees, built, which represents the memory of the deed done, engraved in brass below with the very ruins of the old monastery, which, if not most fit for receiving birds, would certainly be most fit for hearing Mass.

[53] In the sixth and seventh chapters many things are piously excogitated and amplified with oratorical numbers. besides that he is not sufficiently strong in judgment. Against τὸ πρέπον propriety there seems altogether to offend the sending away of Hacca and Lambert to bring back the fugitive Saint, by whom she, inasmuch as they were most impious rogues, had been affected with innumerable calumnies and injuries, the Anonymous witnessing; so that only most imprudently could she have committed herself to the faith of those men of darkness. However much I admit the deeds of Saints to be praised and extolled, certainly from feigning for them things so little congruous I esteem [we] must abstain. In the eighth chapter number 76 the miracle of the earth changed into a pavement, as also number 78 the harmony of the angels, and the other things superadded in the ninth chapter, the first author Drogo could have been ignorant of, but the Anonymous afterward understand from popular tradition. This I marvel at, that against the express words of Drogo it is asserted by this writer, that not the earth where the Saint was slain, but that where she was buried, was turned into pebbles. Thus in the third miracle, a woman was substituted for a man, as see in our Drogo number 23. The rest others will observe; I esteem that what has hitherto been said suffices, that anyone may establish how much this Legend is distant from those degrees of probability on which the Drogonian constantly rests.

[54] Why then, thou wilt say, is that Legend now first brought into the light in Latin, Here for the first time is published this Life, such as it is, since the excellent work of Drogo precedes it by so many titles and names? Whoever shall object this, let him have this answer, that we are debtors to the wise and the unwise; to both must satisfaction be made. In the hands of all is the Belgic Life of the aforesaid Anonymous, the more welcome, as I was saying, the more ample and adorned with more marvels than the Drogonian. It was not permitted to us to withdraw the source whence we knew all those things arose, whose copy, unless it had existed in our Museum, transmitted to Rosweyde by Petrus Rubeccius from Bruges in the year 1604, I know not whether I could anywhere today have found. As every rare thing is dear, so I did not think our labor, bestowed on describing and illustrating this life, would be without its own worth, especially since the author is not so remote from the Saint's age as six hundred others, whose Legends have a place in the work On the Acts of the Saints. If in those things which please me less I dissemble nothing, that certainly ought not to stand in the way, so as to hinder any lucubration whatever from persisting in the due degree of likelihood. That I may say it in a word, although it could be accused of fabulousness, yet it was not to be thrust out hence, even for this reason alone, that I esteem it will be most welcome to the curious of the common people to contemplate as it were at one glance all the things which are circulated concerning St. Godeleva, and, the weights of our reasonings being examined in a just balance, to bring forth their judgment concerning them a little more certainly than they could before.

[55] For what Fleming, even a little sedulous a cultivator of the native Saints, that the source of the Belgic Legends may lie open. would not have read the deeds, martyrdom, and miracles of St. Godeleva, most celebrated martyr, and honored with almost stupendous veneration by the people round about Gistel, nay even by more remote peoples, in those most-worn copies of which I spoke above, wont to be given into the hand as first primers? Who unrolling them, at least unless he be dull or a boor, would not straightway desire to know the author, on whose faith and authority so many histories rest? Him here, I suppose, we have depicted in native colors, taken from the work itself, which now seemed unknown to all: not from the Belgic Legend itself, so interpolated in many places that the author is scarcely recognized; but in the latest editions so dislocated and contracted, that thence it has been rendered no less deformed. But we leave that Belgic Legend here untouched, about to take from it only those miracles which are handed down to have been done after the times of the Anonymous himself. We write for the erudite, to whom certainly it cannot but be a pleasure to contemplate the Acts of the Saints, whatever they be, in their very first germ. The errors made by the same Anonymous concerning various epochs and the whole history of the canonization we have discussed elsewhere; but those things which have not found a place in this our commentary, thou wilt find explained in the annotations. Let these things said concerning the Anonymous and his work suffice. The next thing is, the Legends being abundantly illustrated, that we deduce in order the things which pertain to the Saint's eminent cult, most celebrated through nearly all Belgium.

§ VI. On the cult of St. Godeleva from the Acts, Martyrologies, and others.

The Legend-writer, the Anonymous, of whom we have already spoken often and lately, sought the beginnings of the cult of St. Godeleva exhibited in the church of Gistel, in the monastery of Virgins there, religiously a Religious cult began to be paid, and in other places religiously and by the Catholic rite, from some pretended solemn canonization, procured at Rome through Ratbodo, Bishop of Noyon and Tournai, as at number 99, the last of his Legend, he devises at length; recording namely that to Ratbodo this province was committed by the supreme Pontiff Bl. Gregory VII, that he should take care that her sacred bones, of St. Godeleva, be translated from the dust of the earth, and exalted to public adoration. Who executed the business benevolently. I forbear the rest, above abundantly refuted by us, when at number 31 we rejected that whole form of the canonization, as yet unknown in Belgium at that time, as apocryphal, as a mere scruple of those men who in the last centuries, adorning the Legends of the Saints according to their pious simplicity, ineptly imagined that something of glory would be lost to them, unless solemn canonizations, even most remote ones, were feigned, as of St. Rumold, Apostle and Patron of the people of Mechelen, on the first day of July, and of several others, something had to be said more than once in our Work. Thou hast, at the Acts of St. Udalric, when the first canonization was held.

[57] The Acts are full of innumerable Saints, well and religiously cultivated, of whose canonization, as it is today wont to be received, after the elevation of the sacred body from the earth, there was never any thought. The reckoning of the canonizations of those earlier centuries was this, that, the Saint's body being elevated from the earth by legitimate authority, it was permitted to be reposed in a more august place and honored by the faithful: and that is the whole solemnity, instituted by Ratbodo, to declare our Saint worthy of sacred cult and religious veneration, such as was that which his successor in the see of Tournai, Lambert, used, who in the year 1121 raised at Aldenburg the body of St. Arnulf, Bishop of Soissons, piously deceased there in the year 1087, as it is in that year in Meyer in the Annals, and we shall deduce more fully from the authentic Acts on 15 or 16 August. Such a solemnity again instituted another successor Bishop in the same church of Tournai, Gerard, when in the year 1159 he translated from a humbler place, into a shrine befitting his merits, the body of St. Guthagon at Oostkerke, then in the same diocese of Tournai, now of Bruges, as thou hast in volume 1 of July page 670. To fetch other examples from afar I esteem superfluous; these two in the vicinity, in the same diocese, and indeed performed in later years, sufficiently show what was the custom in Belgium then, for decreeing the honors of the Saints. See the Preface to the fifth Benedictine century from number 91.

[58] The place demands that here, at least by the way, we explain in what year we esteem the aforesaid elevation of the Saint to have been made by Bishop Ratbodo. made not in the year 1088, but 1084, There is a diversity of opinions

between the Drogo of Surius and his not few followers; and others, far more numerous and supported by greater authority: the former, as we were saying above, in his last added clause, marking the year 1088, but the others with the Anonymous cutting away the whole four years. Surius, as being most common, follow Miraeus, Malbrancus, Mabillon, and others. But those words of the last clause, in which the year is set, we have above sufficiently shown to be not Drogo's, perhaps not any most ancient writer's; nor is there any other way left of excusing Surius, or the copy of the life of St. Godeleva which he followed, than if we say that Surius himself could have been deceived by the fault of a copyist, who perhaps not sufficiently versed in the Flemish character, did not distinguish the figure of the cipher, since in that century, in which his copy was probably written, the form of the number four did not greatly differ from the form of the number eight of others. Whencesoever the error was born, it was received by others from Surius, and whether in that way it can be excused or not; to me it is far more likely that not in that year 1088, but four years earlier, namely in the year 1084, was made at Gistel, by Bishop Ratbodo, the elevation of St. Godeleva, not more than fourteen years from her glorious martyrdom.

[59] For this more common opinion stands Meyer in his Annals of Flanders, as Meyer and the very tradition of the people of Gistel have it; at the aforesaid year 1084 expressly asserting: In the same year likewise, on the third of the Kalends of August, the body of the holy Godolepha was raised at Gistel by Bishop Ratbodo. Thus likewise speaks the Anonymous, writer of the grander Life, with the Belgic Legends of today, thus the manuscript Offices, or rather lections, found in several codices of the monastery of Gistel; thus Molanus, Marchantius, Sanderus, and others everywhere, thus finally the constant and perpetual tradition of the people of Gistel, against the already said clause of Surius, to be rejected also on this head. And from what has been said it plainly appears that Meyer received this so-received epoch of the Godelevian elevation, not from Drogo's copy, similar to the Surian, which without doubt he never saw, nor from the genuine Drogo, who is here published by us, inasmuch as with him neither the elevation nor the year in which it was made is in any way treated; but from other more certain monuments, so that to me indeed, at the beginning a little wavering, there is now no doubt but that the most received opinion of the people of Gistel far preponderates, with which at all events I plainly esteem that the public cult, licitly paid to St. Godeleva, began from the year 1084.

[60] An argument in this matter almost decisive was first suggested by the other or later Belgic life of the year 1629, from most ancient monuments, found by me at Gistel, in which the editor praised elsewhere, whom we said to have been present at the unsealing and visitation of the Godelevian reliquary, made by the Most Illustrious Dionysius Christophori in the year 1623, in which, I say, as an eyewitness he professes that he saw, read, and described the ancient charters, which are today still kept in the same reliquary, bearing a decretory sentence for the epoch established by us. Since nevertheless I did not yet altogether acquiesce in those Belgic versions, though procured by an erudite man, but deservedly appealed to the very Latin autographs, I at last obtained by my prayers that the Most Illustrious Henri Joseph, present Bishop of Bruges, out of his benevolence toward me, unsealed the same reliquary anew, whereby it came to pass that all doubt was removed, as thou wilt perceive below from the whole instrument, confirmed by many others. I do not deny that in the aforesaid ancient charters, especially in the first and most ancient, some chronological characters are combined which do not cohere with the received canons: but this must be granted to the antiquity of the writing, which, corroded here and there, could not be rightly transcribed; or there was some confusion of the years in those dark centuries, of which it is not easy today to render a reason. The erudite know with how immense labor it stood, that the densest darkness poured over the reckoning of times was dispelled by the most learned men of the last centuries.

[61] confirmed by [charters found in the very reliquary at Gistel:] It will help in this place to produce the words of the first instrument of Gistel: This holy body of St. Godelepha, marked by evident miracles, was elevated in the place which is called Gistel, and reposed in this little vessel, by the Lord Radbodo, Bishop of Noyon, on the third of the Kalends of August, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand and eighty-four, in the fifth Indiction, no Epact, Philip the King reigning in his twenty-fourth year, the aforesaid Bishop Radbodo being bishop in his fifteenth year, Robert, surnamed the Frisian, being prince in Flanders in his thirteenth year: at whose elevation there was present the Countess Gertrude with her nobles, etc. The fifth Indiction pleases not, nor more the Epact: the twenty-fourth year of Philip pleases not, nor the fifteenth of Ratbodo, connected with the year 1084. But perhaps it can be excused, that, the incomplete numbers being neglected, he took only the whole ones. It should have been read: in the seventh Indiction, in the twenty-sixth year of Philip, the seventeenth of Ratbodo: but he perhaps understood the sense thus, that it is to be read; after there had elapsed five full Indictions, whence they take their beginning is not clear; after Philip had reigned twenty-four years, Ratbodo fifteen full and whole (the twenty-fourth year of Philip composed with the year 1084 Labbe also observed elsewhere). Thus indeed I seem able somehow to explain these things, unless the modes of excusing, adduced in the preceding number, please more. But whatever be of these incoherences, most expressly is noted the epoch of the elevation, by us, as I think, now sufficiently established.

[62] but when it began to be cultivated with an Office, is not clear. Let it therefore be, if not altogether beyond doubt, at least far most likely, that by the authority of Bishop Ratbodo the cult of St. Godeleva was legitimately paid from the aforesaid elevation made in the year 1084, three years before another illustrious Saint of Flanders, and its peace-making apostle, Arnulf Bishop of Soissons, most lately praised, put off mortality at Aldenburg. Whether she soon began to be cultivated with an ecclesiastical Office, whether in the church of Gistel, or in the monastery of the nuns, I have not found handed down to memory, nor is it permitted to define safely enough the epoch of the more celebrated annual festivity. This is certain, that from the beginning a singular veneration was diffused widely through the whole country, whence anyone could conjecture that the peculiar cultivating Virgins of their Saint did not long defer to honor her, at least with a particular Office, in their nunnery, as sufficiently demonstrate the old codices of various form, which I had in hand at Bruges, and from which I shall pluck some things in the paragraph next following. I suspect that the Flemish troubles, too frequent by far, especially those by which they were compelled by the impious Calvinist iconoclasts to desert their monastery and betake themselves to Bruges, interrupted the course, whence at last all things were brought back to the common Office of a holy Virgin and Martyr; not without hope that the present Most Illustrious Bishop of Bruges, as he is most zealous for the glory of the Saints, will sometime procure a proper Office of so illustrious a Saint to be recited yearly. Now let us taste the other part of the title from the sacred Fasti.

[63] Among the somewhat more ancient Belgic Martyrologies, or the so-called augmented Usuards, not even one is found which makes mention of St. Godeleva separately. Old enough is that which comes to us under the name of the Lübeck-Cologne Edition, in which it is thus read on this day 6 July: Likewise of St. Gadelena virgin and martyr. It is plain, I suppose, that our St. Godeleva is indicated, who is also badly expressed in Greven; of Gadaleva virgin and martyr: on whom thus note the manuscript additions of the Charterhouse of Brussels: Otherwise Godelieve or Godelena, strangled by her servants, at the command of her husband Bertulph of Gistel in Flanders, who afterward bound himself to great penitence. She was sprung from the castle of Bensrode. This is her translation or passing. Molanus in the additions to Usuard thus reads: In the territory of Gistel, the passion of blessed Godoliva the martyr. This Canisius seemed to imitate, when he thus wrote: In the territory of Gistel, the martyrdom of St. Godeleva. The manuscript Florarium confounds two announcements: Likewise of the holy virgins Godeleva and Sexburga. Hence we said above that there exists no somewhat more ancient Belgic Martyrology which makes mention of St. Godeleva separately.

[64] Nor indeed does a certain more augmented Usuard savor of great antiquity, but perhaps [there is an older one in the Offices of Gistel.] kept among the Godelevian nuns at Bruges, nor in it is the Saint recorded by a first hand, but over another older announcement erased on the parchment, it is written by a more recent pen: Likewise the passion of blessed Godeleva virgin. In another codex, likewise of parchment, written by hand, of the abbey of St. Andrew, written, as is noted, in the year 1493, which contains a Breviary, there is prefixed a Calendar of the Saints of whom there is chiefly treatment there, among whom on 6 July it is thus read: Of St. Godeleva virgin and martyr, the highest greater feast, which words, as indicating a more solemn feast, are distinguished by a rubric. Again in another manuscript parchment codex of smaller form, comprising the briefer Hours, which also seems to pertain to the end of the fifteenth century, she is referred in her place in the Calendar with a rubric, St. Godeleva: besides, in the Litanies, which are had in the same codex, after the holy confessors, she is invoked in the first place; St. Godeleva pray for us. There follows St. Anne, then Mary Magdalene, Felicity, Perpetua, etc. I found another codex, in which the same Litanies stood. But enough of these from the monuments of Gistel.

[65] The Little Index of the Saints of Belgium of Molanus makes mention of our Saint a little more fully, Molanus, Miraeus rightly following the opinion of Meyer concerning the epoch of the elevation of the sacred body: St. Godeleva the martyr was strangled by her servants, at the command of her husband Bertulph, in the year one thousand and seventy, on the day before the Nones of July. Whose life lucidly wrote to Bishop Ratbodo Drogo the monk, at that time a priest of Gistel. The place is at the fourth milestone from Bruges, where she was elevated by Radbodo *, Bishop of Tournai, in the year one thousand and eighty-four, on the third of the Kalends of August. To this will deservedly be joined the elogium of Miraeus in his Belgic and Burgundian Fasti, thus writing: At the second stone from Ostend, a town of Flanders (which a three-year siege in our age ennobled), is seen Gistel, or Gestella, a municipality, in which place Godeleva, at the command of her husband Bertulf, was strangled by two domestic servants in the year 1070. And there is there afterward a notable abbey of Benedictine virgins, constructed by Bertulf's daughter by a second spouse. On account of the furies of war, the nuns now have their domicile in the city of Bruges.

[66] they adorn the Saint with their elogia; The year of the elevation Miraeus badly noted from the Drogo of Surius, nor more happily wrote him a monk of St. Winnoc of Bergues, and afterward Bishop of the Morini, which we refuted above. Let the Natales of Molanus published by Lowe also have their place: At Gistel, the passion of blessed Godeleva the martyr; who was sprung of honored parents in the territory of Boulogne. But since, on account of the holiness of her life, according to her Flemish name Godelieve, she was very dear to God, her husband Bertulph, a noble of Gistel, by the fraud of the malignant spirit, from the time of the nuptials pursued her with the sharpest hatred and the gravest injuries. Whence at last, consulting for herself by flight, she laid before her parents the history of her calamity.

Hence her father sought from Baldwin Count of Flanders that what was just be decreed. But he referred the cause, because it was of ecclesiastical right, to the Bishop. Whence Bertulph, both by the Prelate's authority and by the Count's power, took back his spouse, promising all the best things. But much worse things followed: for he did not only hate [her], as before, but hardened his mind for her murder. She meanwhile foretold, by the gift of prophecy, that she was to be exalted above all the women of Flanders who survived. And not long after, Bertulph, going to Bruges, that he might not be held conscious of the slaying, caused her through two servants to be strangled: which was done in the year 1070; and soon diverse miracles followed. At a baker's the flour grew, for the loaves to be distributed at the burial. The ground where she was slain was turned into white stones: the water into which, suffocated, she had been cast, being drunk, healed from fevers and other diseases. Likewise the sepulchre and the sacred body the Lord adorned with miracles. Whence after fourteen years Ratbodo Bishop of Noyon, on the third of the Kalends of August, raised the sacred body; and to the same Bishop wrote the history of her life and martyrdom Drogo, monk and priest of Gistel.

[67] as also several others with Saussay. Scarcely more elegantly and neatly could the life of St. Godeleva be abridged, whose other compendia, not inelegant, thou wilt find in Haraeus, Malbrancus, Cognatus in the History of Tournai volume 3, page 92, and others. Sanderus in the Hagiology of Flanders book 3, page 173, besides those things which he collected from Molanus and Miraeus, added these of his own: But Godeleva, though married, is by the assertion of some reported to have preserved virginal chastity, as of old Julian and Basilissa the Martyrs; the Emperor Henry and Cunegund, and certain other Saints are narrated to have done. She was of a very slight stature of body, which the spine of the back, lately seen by me at the Prelate of Ghent Antonius Triest, taken from her sacred body, and given to him by the Bishop of Bruges Dionysius Christophori, sufficiently declares. Lest we seem too profuse in these things, let the praise of Saussay close the train, to be commended at least by its very style: On the very natal day of St. Godeleva, matron and martyr, who, born in the territory of Boulogne, in the village which is called Londefort, of a father Wifrid, a mother Ogina, honored parents, greatly illustrated the nobility of her stock by her morals and the holiness of her life. But since, besides the egregious endowments of her mind, she was strong in a rare comeliness of body, she was given in marriage to Bertulf, a noble but ferocious man, and at once held by him in gratuitous hatred, and vexed in all ways, so far that she was reduced to a poverty of victuals, and subjected to the command of a servant, who with contumelies and mockeries harried the pious Lady, at the instigation of his master. But the handmaid of Christ, leaning on the anchor of patience, stood immovable amid so many billows, and by the example and love of the Lord her Savior himself strove earnestly to conquer evil in good, assiduously intent on prayers and pious works: until at last her husband, having advanced to the summit of impiety, cruelly slew the cultivatress of innocence, chastity, and all piety, of whom he was most unworthy, through his own servants, a noose being cast about her neck, her breath being stopped. But she, for the noose which she unjustly and impiously suffered from her husband, received from God the palm, as the reward of admirable patience, and an unfading crown of glory: and as she was received in heaven into eternal joys, so on earth she was divinely illustrated with illustrious miracles.

* [It] is the same name which before [is] Ratbodo.

§ VII. On the celebrated cult once exhibited to the Saint at Gistel, from old Missals and manuscript ecclesiastical Offices.

[68] From the faith of the Acts and Martyrologies, and from the elogia of particular writers, we make a step to those things which, Her own proper Offices being abrogated, to the perpetual honor of St. Godeleva, were once celebrated in public Offices in the church. There were exhibited to me at Bruges many old manuscript volumes still kept among the Godelevian nuns; from which it manifestly appears that with a peculiar Mass and Office, in the nunnery of virgins at Gistel at least, the most holy Patroness was once cultivated; which at what time first, or by whose command, they were intermitted, cannot be explored with certainty enough. It is easy to conjecture that the aforesaid furies of the heretics contributed not a little to this; or rather that the first Bishops of Bruges introduced the pure Roman rite, from the prescript of the Council of Trent, into their diocese. Most known are the bulls of St. Pius V the Pontiff, prefixed to the Roman Missal as well as the Breviary. However it happened, those old monuments are not so much to be despised, although redolent of the simplicity of their age, that they do not deserve to be here made of public right; illustrious arguments at all events of the singular veneration through those times toward St. Godeleva, which it is most likely was in use also in the temple of Gistel, and perhaps in other places, as there was in those centuries a greater liberty in composing and using ecclesiastical Offices, composed from the proper genius, zeal, and piety of each.

[69] they contained a Mass almost of the common of Virgins and Martyrs; I observe that that liberty was a little greater in feigning and refeigning new prayers concerning St. Godeleva, as will appear below from an old Breviary. In the Mass the peculiar Sequence, as they call it, wont to be subjoined after the Gradual, has not a sufficiently entire beginning. Behold in few words the whole order. The Introit is transferred from the feast of the Bl. Virgin Mary Assumed, or from the feast of All Saints, and fitted to the passion or natal of St. Godeleva, and again to her exaltation; Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating a feast day, etc. Here is set a prayer from the Common; O God, who among the other miracles of thy power, etc. Likewise the epistle, which is to the Corinthians: Concerning virgins I have no precept of the Lord, etc. The Gradual; Hearken, daughter, and see, etc. Then after the Alleluia; Blot out, Godeleva, the crimes of thy servants, a Martyr sanctified by pious martyrdom. Alleluia: Egregious spouse of Christ, implore for us to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Sequence we shall presently give, both for the natal and for the elevation. The Gospel is read from the parable, The kingdom of heaven is like to a treasure hidden, etc. The rest make no great matter deserving singular observation. Have now the aforesaid Sequence, of whose not sufficiently complete beginning I made mention above.

[70] O ye faithful, touch the symphony; with the vow of the heart, of the mouth, sing with the voice: fittingly ranging, with a singular Sequence, let hymnody sound Godeleva solemnizing. In the years of flowering age, she flowers with the flower of chastity, sanctity thrives; the highest Spouse dispensing, she is made a spouse, this Spouse favoring, happily in [her] age. But the mother-in-law rages against her, whom the fire of envy burns inextinguishably. At the words of his mother the spouse flees the poison, and flees from his spouse irreversibly. The dire conflicts of the mother-in-law's household, of the husband, batter her, but she stands immovably. She is assailed with reproaches, with hunger, and is polished with diverse tribulations. But like a rock she grows strong under the pressure, or the assaults of the enemy. Wrestling in the arena, God's right hand helmeting her, she wins the prize. To the eternal kingdoms of the lot to be transferred, she tastes unavenged the portal of death *. The earth is transubstantiated, is figured into gems, where she is delivered to death; her blood is altered, is changed into white marble, as still is discerned. Now worthily she is rewarded, adorned with byssus and scarlet, among the choirs of the Heaven-dwellers. The divine medicine gives health to many sick, through her merit. Be thou a poultice softened, cure our wound, Martyr, with thy blood. May we not be sundered from thee, on account of [our] crime, may we be expiated by thee wholly from crime. Proscribe the disease of the soul. Amen.

[71] wont to be used also in the feast of the exaltation. The manuscript codex noted that in the Elevation of St. Godeleva all things are said as in her natal, or, that the same Mass which is prescribed for 6 July is recited on 30 July. Meanwhile something seems to be distinguished for the Elevation after the already said Sequence, in which almost the miracles of Drogo are recounted: The draught of water gave health to many sick. In the flour there is made the augmentation of the reduced grain. ℣. The changing of the earth into gems proves Godeleva. ℣. As of the son, so of the woman the contraction is healed. ℣. At the sepulchre the ear of grain falls, there is made an opening of the palm. ℣. There the dyer-woman is freed from the punishment of the staff. ℣. Therefore let us give a melody in praise of Godeleva; for whoever justly asks her, the vice of guilt being driven off, returns healed. But that both those parts were also in use in the feast, thou wouldst in vain here inquire at more length. Besides that Mass of each chief feast, there is also another votive Mass, whose Introit, All the rich of the people shall entreat thy countenance, etc., with a proper prayer of this kind: Be propitious, we beseech thee O Lord, to us thy servants, through the glorious merits of St. Godeleva, that by her pious intercession we may be protected from all adversities. The rest differ little from the preceding, if thou except the secret and postcommunion, which prayers to annex here does not seem worth the labor; now let us run through the other ecclesiastical Offices.

[72] Various examples of those Offices, not sufficiently uniform, From various large Breviaries, were sent to me at Bruges, so that more than once it came upon me to marvel whence so great a variation intervened in them, both in the prayers, and most of all in the lections, taken partly from Drogo, partly from the Anonymous, and not rightly composed among themselves, not to say distorted. I deferred their serious examination, until it should be permitted to inspect on the spot the more genuine sources, namely the very codices lately mentioned, among which were the great Antiphonary and others distinguished for chant by their musical notes, and once used in choir. But since such thick volumes could less conveniently be brought hither; it happened quite happily that the often-to-be-praised renowned Wale offered me a little codex, written by brother John de Muer, monk at St. Andrew, for the venerable and devout nun, sister Maria Luebs, cellaress of the monastery of St. Godeleva near Gistel, in the year of grace 1550. In this therefore, well collated with others, since I found plainly all the things which were contained in those larger volumes, written in a great character, I plucked thence the chief heads, from which a sufficient notice of the whole old Godelevian Breviary may be had. I describe the order of the proper Office.

[73] Of Godeleva virgin and martyr, at first Vespers. Antiphon I. proper antiphons at Vespers Behold, a double diadem blesses holy Godeleva; the palm of justice and the rose of martyrdom. Antiphon II. This is she who, with an immaculate spirit and the endowments of blessed faith, about to live perpetually, a victress flew away to the ones Above. Antiphon III. There she will have with the Saints eternal felicity, happy eternity, joy without grief, rest without labor. Antiphon IV. O Martyr Godeleva, who didst merit to wash thy stole in the blood of the Lamb; wash away the soot of our sins. Chapter: Concerning virgins a precept. Responsory: Godeleva, when she is loosed from the prison of the flesh, freely approaches the King of kings, on whose beauty she is fed. ℣. Blessed little home-born servant of Christ, leaving dark Cedar. Hymn at both Vespers and Lauds. Behold, the celebrated solemnities of Godeleva are at hand, which let the Church concelebrate with celebrated gladness. O wondrous grace of Christ, through which the egregious Martyr, spurning the mockeries of the world, rejoices in the court of heaven. Let glory be rendered to God in the consonance of voices, let our assembly chant praises in this solemnity.

Behold, signs and prodigies are shown throughout the borders, the members of the Saint are manifold remedies for the sick.

[74] Glad in heart and mind, let us jubilate to the Most High, who glorifies thee, with a hymn and others here set forth: O Martyr, with miracles through the ages. Therefore, groaning under the bundle of [our] crimes, entreat the Lord, that from the valley of misery he may restore us to the fatherland of heaven. The husband, the mother-in-law with her household, tear thee with envy, [yet] thou rejoicest, and in the fellowship of God flourishing by martyrdom. Let us applaud on the organ, on cymbals, on the timbrel: for the glory of so great a feast, let there be praise to God through all things. Amen. ℣. He will help. At the Magnificat. Antiphon. Blessed martyr Godeleva, while we are shipwrecked in the flood of this world, be thou to us for ever a help toward Christ; by whose grace, triumphing over adversities, now with a signal victory thou rejoicest in the court of heaven. Prayer. O God, spouse of the elect, and palm of the Martyrs, who didst consecrate blessed Godeleva thy martyr as a spouse to thy Son, and, kindled from her tender years with the fire of divine love, didst so inflame her, that she not only made little of the glory of worldly nobility, but also patiently endured the most cruel torment of throat-cutting, grant, we beseech, that we who venerate the tokens of her passion and death, may by her prayers and merits merit to attain the bright seats in heaven. And thy servants. Through the same Lord.

[75] as also the invitatory and hymn at Matins, Thus far the order of Vespers: there follows the Invitatory. Let the pious assembly sing manifold odes to Christ, to whom the faithful martyr Godeleva sings in heaven. Psalm: Come. Hymn: On this day let us sing sweet canticles, lifting the organs of the heart in concord, with which mother Church yearly keeps the solemnities of Godeleva. This woman was begotten of a renowned stock, born again afterward by the grace of baptism, while still a little girl, standing as a worshipper of God, flowering in virginity. Hence she wedded a noble man of Gistel, to whose sight she shone as a burden, whom, weighed down with the wasting of hatred, he suffered to be subjected to all the household. Afterward, full of tedium, pestilential within himself, he was unwilling to be joined to a humble spouse, but by the miserable punishment of martyrdom ordered the hated woman to be slain. Which martyrdom being wrought, she was loosed from her body in the deep of the lake, under the time of night, [and] to the King of glory, with the palm of victory, ascended free of stain. Therefore by the entreaty of the victress woman, may the power of holy grace purge us from crime, that we may be able strenuously to conquer the enemy, by the fortitude of virtues. Glory be to the King, praise and victory, to him who rules things above and below at once, who may remit to us all [our] debts, through the merits of Godeleva. Amen.

[76] from which a judgment may be made of the rest. I should be a tedium, if I recounted severally the antiphons, lections, responsories, verses, etc. of the whole Matins, for although all are proper, they are so taken from the very Acts of St. Godeleva, that twice, thrice, and oftener the very same deeds would have to be repeated, which will afterward recur anew in the Legend of Drogo. Here for an example will be the six antiphons of the first Nocturn. Antiphon I. Therefore from Boulogne, of most renowned parents, was begotten Godeleva, a most splendid offspring. Antiphon II. Nor is it established that it was done without divine governance, that it shone in the open that she obtained such a name. Antiphon III. For as we believe, God disposing, who calls those whom he predestines, the presaging name Godeleva was given her by her parents in baptism. Antiphon IV. For Godeleva in Teutonic sounds "Dear to God" in Latin. Antiphon V. She therefore, while still weak, began to transcend the very years of childhood by the maturity of her morals. Antiphon VI. At length, marriageable in years, a maiden of good disposition, she was leagued by the nuptial bond to a certain man of Flanders. The lections are Drogonian, from the exordium of the Legend. The responsory from the same source. Finally when her husband had led her to the dwellings of his own property, he was deceived by diabolical fraud. And repenting of the deed, he soon held his spouse hated with a very great hatred. ℣. So that greater was the hatred with which he hated her, than the love with which before he had loved her. And repenting, etc. And let these suffice for a specimen.

[77] The first eight lections, for the two first Nocturns, The lections from the life are not to be described. pursue the life, the last four are taken from the homily of St. Gregory, on the Gospel, The kingdom of heaven is like to a treasure, etc. as in the modern Roman Breviary. There is added at the end this prayer. Almighty everlasting God, who workest thy mighty works in the female sex, and who didst grant blessed Godeleva to be betrothed to one man, and by him to be torn with innumerable injuries, and to be martyred by his servants, that she might show the fruit of patience; grant that we may merit to have constancy in adversities, and moderation in prosperity; that, by her intervention, we may be able to attain to the heavenly Jerusalem. And thy servants. At Lauds the same prayer is recited, and this single antiphon is set: Let us keep the alert feast of holy Godeleva, whom Christ sanctioned and increased among the dwellers of paradise. The chapter, hymn, verse are prescribed as at first Vespers. But the antiphon at the Benedictus is of this kind: O Christ the Word of God, who despisest every proud thing, exalting the humble, thou liftest the vile from the dust. Raise up the falling, groaning in the valley of tears, namely those standing by, now venerating Godeleva.

[78] The lesser Hours too have their own proper parts. At Prime, Antiphon. Godeleva the victress, blessed by the hands of her tormentors; What are the proper [parts at the lesser Hours.] she reigns in the citadel of God through the rights of the trophy she has won. At Terce, Antiphon. The mother of Bertulf, gnashing, said, like a fierce enemy, alas, why hast thou now basely wedded that crow-woman? Make brief counsel, as a light task: love her nothing, for she is discerned to be black, and is betrayed to be evil [and] present to thee [as] agreeable. Chapter and prayer, as at Lauds. At Sext, Antiphon. O the wholesome and ardent intention of the holy woman, in desire of holy virtue. Chapter. This is Godeleva, who stretched forth her hands to the poor: she bestows half of half a loaf on the poor, [and] with the rest, in her wonted manner, is refreshed. ℣. Prayer, May the blessed virgin and martyr Godeleva implore indulgence for us, O Lord, etc. At None, Antiphon. Behold, the solemnities of the [one] dear to God shine brightly; wherefore let earth and sea rejoice over them to bless. Chapter. She is become like a ship, etc. Prayer: Grant, we beseech, almighty God, that we who keep the birthday of blessed Godeleva thy Virgin and Martyr, and yearly, etc. At second Vespers nothing new except the antiphon at the Magnificat. O good Messiah, born of the Virgin Mary; make us to reign among the starry dances: we for whom the natal of holy Godeleva is celebrated.

[79] Thus far the Office of the chief festivity, or of the passion and natal of Bl. Godeleva on 6 July: What is to be noted in the rest. on the Octave, and through the Octave, as I suppose, no distinction intervened, save in respect of the more solemn and the less solemn rite. There follows in the codex another celebration of the elevation on 30 July; for which there is premised through eight lections the remainder of the Drogonian life, up to the martyrdom; and afterward in its place, three lections, somewhat interpolated, up to the end. Then again the same Gospel of the Treasure, with the prayer, Receive the prayers of thy people, etc. Then Vespers with new antiphons, chapters, responsories, verses, and hymns; the antiphons and responsories of Matins, of Lauds, etc. which I have not thought should be here described, since from the preceding a judgment can easily be made of these. Again to be noted a new prayer: O God, who by the prayers of thy martyr and virgin Godeleva, whose elevation we today keep, hast cleansed many from the contagion of sin, grant us, we beseech, mindful of her glorious contest, that we may also be aided by her suffrages with thee. And thy servants. That I may here at last forbear those Offices; the rest which pertain to the history of the elevation, since Drogo did not treat of it, had to be taken from the Anonymous, which are more fully deduced in his Legend. To other things of a little greater moment we bend our course.

* read "poterium."

§ VIII. On the place of the first burial, the elevation, translations, and recognitions of the sacred relics at Gistel.

[80] In the front part of the august temple, now destroyed, That Gistel was once a town, girded about with its own defenses, such as they were, agitated and shaken by various chances and vicissitudes of fortune and of wars, so that now it scarcely merits the name of a burgh, as we say, or of a municipality, Sanderus deduces at length in his Franconatus Illustratus, and we above, from him and Marchantius, have not perfunctorily delineated the idea of it. The writer of the miracles from the year 1488 to 1506, a cleric of Gistel, without doubt one of the chaplains, thus records at the aforesaid year 1488 in express words: In the year 1488, dire intestine wars raging in Flanders, the bier with the relics or body of the said martyr Godeleva, in a certain stone tomb, on account of the fears of battle, stood secretly hidden in the church. But at last on the last of January of the same year, the wars daily increasing, by the hidden judgment of God, the town of Gistel is taken in war, burnt, and destroyed, together with the church. Whether from that time the front part of the church, which indeed seems once to have been august, remained destroyed, in that state in which it now is, only the ruins of the walls and columns standing; or whether, as is there reported by the opinion of the common people, these remains are of the furies stirred up by the Calvinist iconoclasts about the year 1577, it is not easy enough for me to define with certainty. The front part could never have been restored, but the rear part gradually emerge from the ruins of the heretics into that form in which it is now beheld.

[81] most probably St. Godeleva was once buried. There is need of eyes alone for a witness, that anyone may measure the mass of the once ample and magnificent temple, in which the aforesaid collector of miracles asserts that in that said terrible fire twenty-one altars were destroyed and shattered by the flame. The tower is even now most elegant, and a Pharos to those sailing the Ocean, says Sanderus. Whether the same temple stood at the very time in which St. Godeleva lived, underwent martyrdom, and was buried, can at least be doubted: that it stood is rendered likely from this, that the church was dedicated to the Bl. Virgin Mary Assumed, St. Godeleva being chosen by the people only as a secondary patroness, otherwise without doubt to obtain the chief place. Which things, though for the very building of the temple they do not altogether convince; yet with the most received tradition of the people of Gistel it will be permitted to suppose that in that front part of the temple the sacred body of the Martyr had its burial, and there remained through all those fourteen years which are handed down to have flowed from her death to the elevation in the year 1084. I saw indeed in the present chapel of St. Godeleva, or in the left nave of the surviving temple, a place shown, covered with a wooden chest, skillfully made, and adorned with the wonted signs of martyrdom (which is said once to have served the use of an altar), by which the empty tomb of the Saint is represented; but neither do the common people themselves or the rustic populace profess that they believe it, since, questioned by me, they answered unanimously; that this indeed is a memorial of the sepulchre; but that it is held more commonly among the people of Gistel, that in the front part of the temple, now destroyed, the body of their Saint was once deposited: but that the place is known today to God alone; which let it suffice to have indicated by the way, since it is superfluous to inquire it at more length.

[82] Concerning the year of the first elevation, the controversy being already settled above; On the first elevation and the ensuing translations, etc. for in §6 above we showed that the genuine Legend of Drogo stops at the miracles wrought a little after her death, certainly probably before the elevation, of which he makes no mention even in a word, inasmuch as it was most known to all when he wrote, and in no way regarding his intent. Of the last clause added to the Surian Drogo, enough has also been disputed. It was likewise plain that the Anonymous interpolator ran on a good bit of the way, and skipped outside the olive i.e. off track, especially where toward the end he is wholly engaged in describing the processes held by Ratbodo or at his command, the Roman canonization, and the ensuing more solemn elevation, which he did not aptly enough reduce to the various chronological reckonings: so that consequently recourse had to be had to other monuments, from which we might be more certainly instructed concerning the said year of the elevation, and the most simple manner of its being instituted, which, pointed out to us by the praised Belgic editor of the entire Drogonian life, we afterward obtained more authentic from the present Most Illustrious Bishop himself, who took care that the letters or ancient testimonies be transcribed for us, the reliquary of Gistel being unsealed on 27 September 1719, and all things being reviewed which seemed necessary to us for making an indubitable faith. Part of the first and most ancient we gave in the cited paragraph, the chronological notes being reduced to the true reckonings. Here the several instruments are to be produced in order.

[83] From the letters patent of the Most Illustrious Dionysius Christophori, sixth Bishop of Bruges, presently to be produced, more certain monuments are here subjoined. it plainly appears that there were found by him, when in the year 1623 he instituted a solemn visitation and recognition of the Godelevian reliquary, two letters, described on parchment, of which, one being altogether entire, he transfixed his own i.e. attached his letters. That the others were not entire, but corroded, eaten away, and torn, the express opposition between the two sufficiently indicates. That torn membrane, extended almost to half an ell in length, and stretched to the middle part of its breadth, even today deposited in the reliquary, in which there is treatment of the first elevation of the year 1084, and likewise of the first translation of the year 1380, and which today is nearly consumed by mold, he caused to be described by a notary, and fortified by his authority William Bishop of Sarepta, namely he, the Suffragan of Charles de Croy, Bishop of Tournai, who in the year 1557 for the third time translated the aforesaid relics from the old bier … and enclosed them in a new silver bier, magnificently adorned with shining stones and gilded plates. Thence were made those entire Sareptan letters, whose transcript, described by the renowned Wale, the Most Illustrious Henri Joseph van Susteren, present Bishop of Bruges, sent to me, after he reviewed both these and the more ancient charters, in the last collation made on the day and year aforesaid, as will be declared below at more length; for otherwise, as the same Wale testifies, to join to each other the cut letters, and the parts of the membrane dissected and separated by age … would be almost impossible. Behold now the Sareptan instrument entire, distinguished by me into three articles.

The first elevation of the year 1084.

[84] The witnesses of this elevation are recounted: This holy body of St. Godelepha, marked with evident miracles, was elevated in the place which is called Gistel, and reposed in this little vessel, by the Lord Radbodo, Bishop of Noyon, on the third of the Kalends of August, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand and eighty-four, in the fifth Indiction, no Epact, Philip the King reigning in his twenty-fourth year, the aforesaid Bishop Radbodo being bishop in his fifteenth year, Robert, surnamed the Frisian, being prince in Flanders in his thirteenth year. At whose elevation there were present the Countess Gertrude with her nobles, Ingelbert abbot of St. Winnoc, Walter archdeacon of Tournai, Walcher warden of the city of the same church, Wido treasurer and chancellor of Noyon, Albert priest, Drogo Deacon, Landric subdeacon, Robert Provost of Bruges, Thedbald dean, Folbert cleric, Desiderius, notary of this writing, of Gistel, Ramger priest, John Erald, Folbert and Landbert, Frethabald and Erembald, Olfred warden of the church, and his son Radbodo, and others, etc., unnamed.

The translation of the year 1380.

[85] And since the relics of the holy body of the aforenamed Bl. Godeleva had been elevated long ago, likewise the first translation: in the year aforesaid, by the Venerable Men, Fathers and Lords, the Lord Radbodo, Bishop of Noyon, and others there present, whose names the present page of good memory declares: for a second time be it known to all the faithful of Christ, that in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand three hundred and eighty, namely on the fifteenth of the month of May, in the third year of the pontificate of the most holy Father in Christ and our Lord, the Lord Pope Urban VI, in the third Indiction, the little vessel, in which the first time the aforesaid holy body had been placed, was renewed with great devotion of the parishioners of Gistel, in which renewed bier, which at present is used in the church of Gistel, the bones of the holy body of the aforesaid St. Godeleva were with great devotion, after the manner of a translation, replaced by the discreet man the Lord John Vromond, curate of Westkerke, chaplain of the church of Gistel, by the authority of his superiors committed to him, there being present the discreet and honest men and Lords Nicholas Kempe, Lambert Meenssoone, curates of Gistel, John de Fleuricourt priest, writer of the present letters, Nicholas Marteel, Giles Dardebond priests and chaplains of the same church, and several other priests, clerics, and laymen, parishioners of the said parish of Gistel.

The other translation of the year 1557.

[86] For the third time the aforesaid relics were translated from the old bier, from which, then of the other made by the Bishop of Sarepta at the instigation of the malignant spirit, sacrilegious men had by a nocturnal spoliation dragged off very much silver, and were enclosed in a new silver bier, magnificently adorned with shining stones and gilded plates, under the solemnities of the Masses in the said church, on the Lord's day, the twenty-seventh of the month of June in the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-seven, in the third year of the pontificate of Pope Paul the fourth, in the first Indiction, under the episcopate of the Reverend Lord Charles de Croy, Bishop of Tournai, the Emperor Charles the fifth being alive, and his son Philip reigning, King of the Spains, England, France, Naples, Sicily, and Count of Flanders: John Francis, son of John Charles de Assaytady, holding the lordship: by the ministry of the Reverend Father in Christ the Lord William, by the grace of God Bishop of Sarepta, Suffragan of Tournai, and Dean of the Collegiate church of St. Saviour of the town of Bruges, of the diocese of Tournai, by commission of the magnificent and generous Lord Guilbert Dognies Apostolic Protonotary, archdeacon of the Cathedral church of Bl. Mary of Tournai, coadjutor and Vicar general of the aforesaid Lord Charles Bishop of Tournai, there assisting the Reverend and excellent Lords Guilbert le Bleu, abbot of the monastery of St. Andrew near Bruges, Patron of the same church of Gistel, Oliver vander Hulst, abbot of the monastery of St. Peter of Oudenburg, and Brother John de Muer, Prior of the same monastery, the Lords and Masters John Rycx and John Cock, curates of the church of Bl. Mary of Gistel: likewise the Lords and Masters Arnold Dierkens, and Hugh Coens curate, Canons of the same church of St. Saviour of Bruges.

[87] All the curates of the field of Gistel and many other Ecclesiastics being also convoked there: with a collation of the old instruments. the aforesaid solemnity being procured and directed by the egregious and circumspect men Nicholas Morasini, first Bailiff of Gistel; Adam de Meuninck, Peter Igels wardens and burgomasters there, and John Almaere, third warden, and the whole senate, and very many others both nobles and commoners. Likewise the aforesaid William Bishop of Sarepta, a collation being made with the old letters, written on parchment, and found in the old bier, the undersigned Notary reporting, found them to agree word for word with the narration of the aforesaid two preceding translations. In faith of all and each of which, he caused these present letters to be subscribed by me the Notary, and to be fortified by the appending of his oblong seal and the subscription of his name. And it was signed William Bishop of Sarepta. In the fold was had, by mandate of the Reverend Lord of Sarepta: and it was signed Christian Grave Apostolic and Imperial Notary admitted. To the above act was affixed an oblong seal, representing St. William, praying to heaven.

The visitation of the year 1623.

[88] Dionysius, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic see, sixth Bishop of Bruges, The reason of this visitation, perpetual Chancellor of Flanders, etc. To all the faithful of Christ who shall see these present letters or hear them read, greeting in the Lord. It has always been piously observed in the Church of God, and even henceforth to be inviolably observed, as an article of faith, the holy Council of Trent teaches, that the relics of the Saints, who were temples of the Holy Spirit, be cultivated and honored with pious veneration. Wherefore since it was established to us for very many years, and especially from the erection of this bishopric, that no visitation had been made of the relics of St. Godeleva virgin and martyr, we thought it to be of our office to expend our labor on the visitation of the same relics. And so in the year of the Lord 1623, on the fifth day of the month of July, when, on account of the feast of the same Saint, to be celebrated on the following day, her relics were to be transported to Gistel from the monastery of St. Godeleva existing at Bruges (where, on account of the deplorable times of war, they were kept), we, departing from the same city of Bruges together with the bier, in which the same sacred relics rest, with a due and honest retinue, betook ourselves to the town of Gistel.

[89] solemnly instituted, In whose parish church, on the sixth day of July, after the solemnities of the holy Masses, which we celebrated in pontificals, and a procession being made with the relics of St. Godeleva through the said town, and a sermon being finished, held to the honor of the same Saint, vested in pontificals, the lights being lit, and the whole magistracy of Gistel bearing burning torches in their hands, with due reverence we opened the aforesaid wooden bier, covered with cloth of gold, and marked in some part with gilded copper, adorned here and there with crystalline stones, pertaining to the aforesaid parish church of the town of Gistel: which when we inspected and visited, we found reposited therein the relics of the sacred body of St. Godeleva virgin and martyr, solid, in no part of them corrupted, bearing a chestnut color, together with two letters described on parchment, of which, one being altogether entire, these our letters are transfixed. The aforesaid bier therefore being opened, to the faithful of Christ, who for the cause of devotion and vow had convened in great number to this solemnity, we specially showed and exhibited the said sacred relics of the body of St. Godeleva virgin and martyr.

[90] many being present, both ecclesiastics, Which showing being performed, and the hymn Te Deum laudamus being sung, the same sacred relics, embalmed with fragrant balm, and distinguished into eight little bundles wrapped in red silk and golden threads, we again reposited and enclosed in the same bier, and fortified the door of the same bier with our seal, impressed on red wax, in four places: there being present and assisting us, the very Reverend Lords Henri vanden Zype, abbot of St. Andrew near Bruges, patron of the aforesaid church of Gistel, and Maximilian d'Engien, abbot of St. Peter of Oudenburg, and the Reverend and Venerable Lords, Servatius Quinquerus Dean, Arnold of Mechelen Archdeacon, John van de Velde, Archpriest, who both in the name and by commission of the Most Reverend Father in Christ and

Lord Maximilian Bishop of Tournai, patron also of this church, was present at this act; John Baptist Crocquet, John Cerezo, John Jacobs, Robert Meynaerts Scholastic, Francis Peroulle, Peter Blende, Peter Knudde, Canon priests of the Cathedral church of St. Donatian of Bruges, as also the Lord Martin Herpels pastor of Gistel, and the Lord Jacob van Blootacker, our chaplain, and other priests and clerics.

[91] There being also present, in the absence of the noble man, then seculars, convoked for this. the Lord Caesar Affaitadi, Baron of Gistel, his consort the Lady Magdalena de Camargo, the Lord Louis de Camargo, her father, Captain of a troop of horse, and the Lord Nicholas Morasini, first Bailiff of Gistel, Adrian Storme burgomaster of the community, Maillard Acke, burgomaster of the Aldermen, and the rest of the Magistracy, as also the masters of the fabric and of the table of the Holy Spirit of the same church, and very many other faithful of Christ of both sexes. These things were done in the third year of the pontificate of our most holy Lord Gregory XV, Ferdinand the second being emperor, Philip the fourth reigning, King of the Spains, Count of Flanders; the same province being governed for him by Isabella Clara Eugenia of Austria, Infanta of the Spains. In faith of which, we have signed the present letters with our own hand, and have ordered them to be fortified with our seal and the signature of our secretary. In the year from the nativity of the Lord 1623, on the sixth day of the month of July, the feast of St. Godeleva. These things were taken from the register of the bishopric of Bruges.

The last recognition of the year 1719.

[92] Henri Joseph van Susteren, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic see, The Most Illustrious [Bishop, about to satisfy our desire,] Bishop of Bruges, Perpetual and hereditary Chancellor of Flanders, etc. to all who shall see these letters, greeting in the Lord. Whereas the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, who in the Professed house of Antwerp have, now for many years back, so zealously and so usefully for sacred history sweated at composing the Acts of the Saints, had now by their holy and assiduous lucubrations come to this point, that they were already sedulously occupied in putting together the life of St. Godeleva, who at Gistel, a town of our diocese, is cultivated on 6 July with the highest veneration of the people, and had therefore earnestly as well as reverently requested from us those documents which could be found in our archives or elsewhere, regarding the aforesaid Saint or her sacred relics.

[93] Hence we, desiring nothing so eagerly as to pursue the Saint of our diocese with what ampler honor we can, and recognized the relics themselves, and to expend our episcopal office on her exaltation, as also to comply with all our endeavor with the most holy desires and the pious intentions of the aforesaid Fathers, betook ourselves on the twenty-seventh of the month of September last to the town of Gistel and its parish church, and there, with all the reverence that is fitting, we opened the wooden bier, covered with cloth of gold, adorned with gilded plates and here and there with crystalline stones, in which the relics of St. Godeleva virgin and martyr are cultivated; which we found internally divided into two parts, in whose front part was a little bundle wrapped in red silk, in which certain smaller bones were contained, but in the rear part were reposited all the greater bones of the sacred body of the aforementioned St. Godeleva, distinguished into eight little bundles, wrapped in red silk and golden threads, in the manner in which we found these sacred relics described and designated in the act of visitation which the Most Illustrious Bishop of Bruges Dionysius Christophori instituted, in the year from the nativity of the Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, on the sixth day of the month of July.

[94] and, what was chiefly required, the authentic instruments. And that act lay next to those greater bones, together with the testimonials of the Reverend Father in Christ the Lord William, by the grace of God Bishop of Sarepta, suffragan of Tournai and Dean of the Collegiate church of St. Saviour of the town of Bruges, of the year one thousand five hundred and fifty-seven, the twenty-seventh of the month of June. Which relics indeed of the sacred body of the holy virgin and martyr, after we had exhibited them to the sight of those present and to the veneration of the sacred kiss, we again reposited and enclosed in the same bier, and fortified the door of each part of the same bier with our seal impressed on red wax, linen cloths being laid over, in five places, there being present the very Reverend Lord J. Bellinck, Pastor of the aforesaid town of Gistel and Dean of the Christianity, and various other curates of our diocese, and the whole magistracy of Gistel, and other most numerous Faithful of both sexes. In faith of which we have signed these, and ordered them to be fortified with our seal and the signature of our secretary. At Bruges this 29 September 1719. Signed Henri Joseph Bishop of Bruges. Place of the seal. By mandate of my Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord, Lud. de Wale Secretary.

§ IX. On the double bier or reliquaries of Gistel, exposed to various chances and adversities, oftener translated to Bruges and brought back, now kept at Gistel, and wont to be exposed and carried about yearly.

From the premised paragraph, and from the authentic instruments there produced, it abundantly appears The first reliquary rendered more adorned, that the first shrine, in which after the elevation of the year 1084 the sacred bones of St. Godeleva were reposited, was a little vessel, I suppose a wooden little chest, without doubt somewhat adorned, which, for the veneration of the townsmen of Gistel toward the Saint, was renewed in the year 1380. The little vessel, says the charter, in which the first time the aforesaid holy body had been placed, was renewed with great devotion of the parishioners of Gistel. The writer of the instrument John de Fleuricourt does not express in what that renewal of the shrine consisted; but from the other translation of the year 1557, made by William Bishop of Sarepta, Suffragan of Tournai, it seems to be gathered that it was covered and adorned with little silver plates, which namely the sacrilegious thieves tore off from the shrine itself. The words of the third instrument are; from which (the old bier), at the instigation of the malignant spirit, sacrilegious men had by spoliation dragged off very much silver. From which it is manifest that, either in that very renewal, or certainly in that interval of time which flowed from the year 1380 to 1557, the reliquary of St. Godeleva, of which we speak, was covered or adorned with silver, which emerged the more illustrious for the sacrilege of the thieves: for thence arose the occasion of making a new silver [one], magnificently adorned with shining stones and gilded plates, as the very instrument most expressly asserts.

[96] To the earlier chest pertain two chances, indeed marvelous; one, in the terrible fire of 1488 it was preserved; which the editor of the Belgic Lives records, in the appendix to the Legend of Drogo, taken, as he says, from the books of the Offices of the church of Gistel, where in chapter 21, page 21, he narrates that history, of three thieves, spoilers of the oft-said reliquary. The other is handed down by the Cleric of Gistel, cited also elsewhere, who carried the miracles down to the year 1506. Namely, that in that terrible fire of the year 1488, of which we made mention also before, when by the force of the flames, not only the temple, the altars, and the bells, but even the metal sarcophagi, as also the iron candlesticks, placed round about, were, by the long-lasting burning fire, incinerated, and as it were reduced to nothing; yet our Redeemer so preserved intact the pledges of his beloved, comprehended in a wooden chest, covered with thin silver and adorned with gems, that not the least precious little stone was broken. An illustrious miracle indeed, of which neither the monuments of Gistel, already cited, nor the Belgic lives, however extended, anywhere make mention, since nevertheless it rests on that authority, that in his little preface that Cleric testifies that he writes only such things as he saw with his own eyes, or received under oath from those to whom they happened. And he could certainly have been present at that fatal fire of the year 1488, who in the year 1506 was still conversant in the parish church of Bl. Mary of Gistel, whose little tract, to be produced by me entire among the miracles, I cannot marvel enough to have been hitherto unknown to the people of Gistel.

[97] As to the other prodigy, it too is narrated in the greatest Belgic life published in 1619, afterward spoiled by thieves, in nearly the same words in each edition, which here I put into Latin. It happened on a certain night that three thieves broke into the temple, where the sacred bones of St. Godeleva were kept in a shrine, adorned with glittering little stones and shining gold, and set upon four lion's feet, cast of silver. But while those thieves moved themselves nearer to the aforesaid shrine, about to tear off the silver from it; wonderful to say, yet what was asserted by men worthy of faith, the chest raised itself on its hind feet, defending itself against the thieves with the two front feet, as if it had been alive. Which being seen, one of them, bolder, leaped upon the reliquary, and, sitting upon it with legs astride, as if sitting a horse, violently drew off thence two silver plates, on which two Apostles were engraved. The sacrilege being perpetrated, snatching flight, while they believed that they had escaped from the town, they found themselves still shut up therein, and when once and again they tried to break out, they marveled that they had profited nothing more; so that for three whole days, wandering, they could neither slip away, nor eat or drink, nor perform anything to the exigency of nature. At last they exhibited the stolen plates to a goldsmith, praying that he would redeem them from them. But he recognized them to have been furtively carried off from the shrine of St. Godeleva, and, a clamor being raised from the altercation, the neighboring people soon ran together, and the thieves being constrained, they openly confessed the crime: but because they were sprung of a noble stock, the punishment of death being remitted, they were ordered to go into exile.

[98] to which in the year 1557 a new one was substituted, Thus with equal consent do both our Belgic Legends record, no certain time being assigned in which so wonderful a matter happened, and which therefore from the instruments recited in the preceding paragraph, notably from the third Sareptan [one], seemed able to be gathered with some likelihood, if the appendages of each narration were sufficiently reconciled among themselves. For since in the instrument the matter is insinuated as if not done so long ago, it would somehow be permitted to conjecture that those sacrilegious [men], perhaps already then breathed upon by the smoke of heresy, attempted the crime about the year 1550, so that a time may be left necessary for the new chest to be fabricated and adorned, in which at last in the year 1557 the sacred relics of St. Godeleva were finally reposited. And these things would be said by conjecture, from some agreement between the history of the Belgic Legends and the text of the Sareptan instrument. Some agreement, I say; for if the very words of the instrument be more strictly taken, from which (the old bier), at the instigation of the malignant spirit, sacrilegious men had by a nocturnal spoliation dragged off very much silver, nothing more is indicated than the tearing off of two silver plates, on which two Apostles were engraved, which, since they were recovered from the goldsmith of Gistel, could easily be restored entire, so that for that cause there was no need to make a new bier, or to clothe [it] round with new silver. Add that the Belgic Legends make that old shrine a little more august than the Cleric of Gistel dared, when above he says that in the year 1488 the chest was of wood, covered with thin silver.

[99] probably surviving even today; However thou explain the matter, from so authentic a diploma one must admit it as certain, that a new Godelevian bier of whatever sort, whether silver or silvered, in the aforesaid year 1557

was skillfully made by the munificence of the people of Gistel; in which, unless I am vehemently deceived, to this very day the sacred remains of St. Godeleva have constantly been deposited, never recognized or visited by any Bishop of Bruges before the year 1623, as is expressly intimated in the last letters of the Most Illustrious Dionysius Christophori; much less translated from one shrine into another. A difficulty not small occurs, in that the oft-said third instrument, or Sareptan, testifies in such express words that in that year 1557 the relics were enclosed in a new silver bier, magnificently adorned with shining stones and gilded plates, which indeed cannot at all be said of the present reliquary, which I have more than once accurately contemplated, the eyes as witnesses plainly evince; for however great it be, it is wholly of wood, clothed with cloth of gold, and distinguished here and there with little bronze columns once gilded, for ornament rather than for firmness. From the added delineation, engraved in brass, of the machine now enduring a century and a half and more, thou wilt conceive the idea, and the more easily understand the matter.

[100] Thou beholdest here a little edifice, so to speak, containing in length about four feet, here described and represented. in breadth one, in height a little more than two (whatever the delineation may seem to deceive the eyes of beholders in the dimensions), whose more extended parts are covered with cloth of gold, one side representing the strangulation, the other the pressing down into the water. There rise up eight little bronze columns, once, as I was saying, gilded, of which two on each side represent I know not what kind of frontispiece, whose highest part has incrusted stones, and represents the arms both of the town of Gistel and of others, who probably contributed something to the first fabrication of the chest. The narrower sides, for the greater part covered with gilded copper, display their own little columns too, with family shields. The upper roof, of ancient or Gothic form, is decorated with an ornament of flowers somewhat continuous, of a height of nearly three fingers, running down also into other parts. One narrower side exhibits a Flemish inscription engraved on a small and very thin silver plate, in which there is plainly wanting what was chiefly sought, namely in what year the oft-said reliquary was made or repaired. Thus it is there read: Feretrum in quo S. Godelevæ martyris corpus, reparatum Brugis A. M. … [The bier in which is the body of St. Godeleva the martyr, repaired at Bruges in the year …]. If I have rightly considered and inspected the whole work, I think that on that exterior and apparent roof another likewise wooden one is placed, in which the sacred relics are kept, fortified with due seals, as I remember to have seen in other shrines of this kind. The rest the instruments adduced above explain.

[101] There now remains the solution of the proposed difficulty, namely how the bier could have been called silver, How it could have been called silver. magnificently adorned, etc., in the year 1557, in which today scarcely anything of silver appears, of gilding very little. But why I esteem that the very same bier in number survives today, the first reason is; the very antiquity of the work, now plainly ruinous, so far that the people of Gistel openly profess that they seriously think of a new shrine, and that truly silver, presently to be designated, into which, in the hundredth year after the last visitation, which is to say after three years, they wish the sacred bones of their Patroness to be translated. The other reason is, that by no Bishop of Bruges, who not long after the visitation of the year 1557 undertook the care of that church, is it known to have ever been opened or recognized before the year 1623, so that consequently no year can be assigned in which from a silver [one], if ever there was, into this wooden [one] the sacred body could have been translated: moreover that the same shrine now exists which existed a hundred years [ago], is in the confession of all. If therefore anything either of pure silver or of gilded plates was once in that shrine, it must be ascribed to the tumults of the wars and the rage of the iconoclasts, that now nothing of them survives. Nor indeed do I imagine that the shrine was fabricated of solid silver in the year 1557, but so adorned without doubt, that all silvered and gilded, with the surviving little stones and other shining things, so fed the eyes of beholders that all appeared silver and gold. If anyone feel otherwise, he must overturn the arguments on which we esteem that we rest safely enough.

[102] On account of wars it had to be deposited in various places, In those furies of wars, by which in the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth Flanders was agitated, it is certain that the sacred shrine lay hidden in various places. The nuns of Gistel had fled from their monastery in the year 1577, about that time received at Bruges; that with them the reliquary remained some years, up to 1623, the already said instrument of the Most Illustrious Christophori makes faith, when he says that the same sacred relics, from the monastery of St. Godeleva existing at Bruges, where on account of the deplorable times of war they were kept, were transported to Gistel. But indeed they had been deposited in many other places before, ere the Most Illustrious Rodoan had taken care that they be carried to the said monastery. For as the editor of the greater Belgic life abridged narrates, chapter 51 page 66; when, the heresy of the Calvinists raging, both the monastery and church of Gistel had been destroyed by them in the year 1577, the aforesaid relics were sought thence by Catholic soldiers from the garrison of Kortrijk, in which city they were guarded up to the year 1589. Then brought to Bruges, they are committed to the faith of the Reverend Lord Andreas Pannis, Canon there at the collegiate church of the Bl. Virgin Mary; who dying after a year, they rested in the house of Paul Sorge, while he lived a scribe of Gistel, up to the year 1604, in which at last the already said Most Illustrious Rodoan, the bier of the skull being visited, as will presently appear, ordered both this and that to be translated to the monastery of St. Godeleva, which we have said had by then migrated to Bruges.

[103] Why after the year 1623, other tumults of wars arising in that part of Flanders, and afterward to be carried to and fro to Bruges and Gistel. they were not again brought back to the same monastery of St. Godeleva, where they had been so long deposited, I flee to inquire at length; from the registers of the bishopric of Bruges this plainly appears, that the aforesaid relics did not long remain at Gistel, but on account of the daily perils and tumults of these times, and the incursions of enemies, there was entered in the year 1632 a contract between the Most Illustrious Quinckerius and the Baron of Gistel and the community, that the bier of St. Godeleva should no longer be kept at Gistel, but, the consent of the Dean and Chapter of the collegiate church of St. Saviour of Bruges being obtained, it was placed in the archive, whence yearly, by license of the Most Illustrious Bishop, and under the bond of those who were deputed from Gistel, they could be carried out, not to be retained abroad longer than for the time of the solemnity, from 6 July to the 30th day of the same month. Thus testify various articles of the aforesaid registers, described by me, from which it is plain that for many continuous years they were thus received by the people of Gistel, [and] thus moreover constantly brought back. I observed among other things, that sometimes only the head was permitted to be carried off, notably in the year 1639, perhaps because then graver perils threatened: at least were feared.

[104] I shall not here record several controversies, which subsequently arose over the aforesaid bier, The lesser bier made of silver, so that the temporal Lord, the Count of Gistel, wished it to be carried to himself: these things I esteem byplays to our purpose; this is most explored to me, that the people of Gistel are zealous and vigilant guardians of their sacred treasure. Besides the greater bier of the sacred body already described by us, there is also another lesser, and that truly cast of silver, in which the skull of St. Godeleva is enclosed. It represents a feminine face with shoulders and part of the breast, a round opening being left at the top, where through glass the head appears, on which a crown woven of flowers is placed. At what time the crown of the head was separated from the rest of the body, I nowhere find handed down; it is likely that it was extracted from the shrine in the year 1380: this the cited register certainly teaches me; that in the year 1626, on 3 July the Most Reverend Dionysius Christophori reposited the relics of the head of St. Godeleva V. and M. from a silvered copper shrine, in which they were kept, into a silver one, expressing on the outside the form of a feminine face, with part of the shoulders, given by himself as a gift. The enclosed act of this repositing, transfixed with the letters of the Most Reverend Lord Charles Philippe de Rodoan the fourth, while he lived Bishop of Bruges, establishing the faith of the truth of these relics. His arms the Most Illustrious donor deservedly affixed, which even today appear in the interior part. The face seemed to me somewhat black, perhaps because it contracted that color from the kisses piously fixed by pilgrims. To pluck out the scruples of the incredulous, I have thought the very letters of the Most Illustrious Rodoan should here be inserted. Thus he himself speaks:

[105] Charles Philippe de Rodoan, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic see Bishop of Bruges, which in the year 1604 had been recognized. to all and each who shall see, read, or hear read these letters, everlasting greeting in the Lord. We make known that there appeared before us, in the presence of the Reverend Lords Peter Pantinus, Dean of the notable collegiate church of St. Gudula of the town of Brussels and Vicar General of the army of their Highnesses; and Servatius Quinquerius, Arnold of Mechelen, respectively Archpriest and Penitentiary of our cathedral church, as also of the Burgomasters, aldermen, consuls, and scribe of the town of Gistel; Isabella, daughter of the pious memory Paul Sorghe, while he lived scribe of the said town of Gistel, who, an oath being first solemnly taken, declared that the skull had for many years been sedulously preserved in the house of the said Paul, her father, for the relics of St. Godeleva the martyr; nor anything changed or done about the same, by reason of which a suspicion of any change or substitution could fall: so that it deservedly ought to be held, venerated, and cultivated for the true and genuine skull of the said blessed Martyr: and so much the more, because, the chest being examined, in which the said skull was enclosed, we found in the same a little schedule, in an ancient character, containing these words: Sinte Godelieben Hooft te Ghistele dede in silver beslaen den hooghe ende mogende Heere/Myn heere Mer Jan van Ghistele anno MCCCXCII. [The head of St. Godelieve at Gistel the high and mighty Lord, my Lord Sir Jan van Ghistele, caused to be overlaid in silver in the year 1392.] In faith of all and each of which, we have ordered and caused the present letters to be fortified with the appending of our seal and the subscription of our secretary. Done at Bruges in the year one thousand six hundred and four, on the fourteenth day of the month of September. In the fold was written, by mandate of the aforesaid Most Reverend Lord, Philippe de Lepelaere secretary, and sealed with the seal of the said Most Reverend Lord hanging from a double parchment tail. Thus the copy.

[106] The people of Gistel [are vigilant guardians of the treasure.] The repository of both shrines of Gistel thus depicts the very Reverend Lord Franciscus Bellinck, present parish priest, and dean of the district of Gistel, describing his visitation, made not long ago. In the sacristy, he says, the relics of St. Godeleva are kept, enclosed by two little iron latticed doors, with three locks. The key of the first the Pastor has, of the second the Count, of the third the masters of the chapel of St. Godeleva; and by two wooden little doors with one lock, whose key the Pastor alone has. Thus ordained in the Council of Flanders: by which without doubt were composed those controversies which we mentioned a little above.

While the aforesaid relics on 6 July and the subsequent days up to the 30th lie open to the veneration of the people, the lesser silver bier is set upon a table, next to the altar of St. Godeleva, at the Gospel horn; the greater shrine is sustained by two wooden supports, almost in the middle of the chapel or nave presently to be described. And I had requested a little delineation of that lesser bier, which why it was not added, since the loss was slight, I forbear to inquire. It is a thing composed for the art of a goldsmith, not much unlike that virginal face which, set upon the larger reliquary of the nuns of Bruges, is exhibited a little below to be beheld.

§ X. On the present solemnity in the church of Gistel, with an incredible concourse of people from 6 July to the 30th of the same month, and the elegant chapel and the salutary well.

The highest piety of the Flemings toward the Saints, That the Catholic Belgians, especially those who inhabit Flanders, are cultivators of the Saints zealous in few i.e. matched by few, is so widely known that it is in vain to heap up arguments on that matter. That various pilgrimages are undertaken by the same to various sanctuaries of the country, for obtaining the patronages of those heavenly spirits in various necessities, diseases, and straits, I esteem likewise most known. Among all the Saints and holy women who are most piously cultivated throughout all that country, as widely as it is extended, there is none to be found whose veneration and fame of almost continuous miracles is more widely extended than the glory of St. Godeleva, inasmuch as to her relics, from nearly all the cities, towns, and villages of all Flanders, throughout the whole course of the year indeed, but chiefly on the natal celebration of 6 July, and the subsequent days up to the 30th of the same month, in greater number and apparatus, both townsmen and rustics flow together in emulation, so far that, on the testimony of the Reverend Lord Parish Priest and Dean of the district of Gistel, praised by us elsewhere, who has now for thirty-eight years cultivated that vineyard, two or three thousand men convene on the very 6 July at the parish church, besides others, who perhaps in greater number run to the old monastery of the nuns (which is commonly called Pitkens, from the ditch, I suppose, in which St. Godeleva was suffocated), distant about half a league from the town, in a huge confluence from every part, to draw there the most salubrious water, as we shall say in its place.

[108] Here we have before our eyes only that solemnity It shines forth most at Gistel yearly on 6 July, which is celebrated in the very church of Gistel, at which I myself was present on 6 July of the year 1719, not without the highest admiration on account of so great a multitude of people; whence it had flowed together thither, I more than once asked the inhabitants, from whom I had this answer, that a moderate crowd of men was beheld on that day; that far more had sometimes convened, and were wont yearly to convene, especially from Bruges, neighboring Aldenburg, Ostend, Nieuwpoort, and from Veurne, Dunkirk, Bergues St. Winnoc, Bailleul, Ypres, Kortrijk, Ghent, Lille, Tournai, and other places even much more remote; so great, namely, is the confidence of well-nigh all the Flemings toward St. Godeleva, as the common patroness of the whole region, so great, I say, and perennial, in the Saint. And although in most of those cities or towns some relics of the very Saint are honored, nay even in some villages and hamlets, yet it seems so received among the inhabitants, as if they had bound themselves to that matter by a vow, that they would reckon it a scruple to themselves not to have proceeded, at those set times, to Gistel to the festivity of St. Godeleva.

[109] I myself had been a witness on 5 July, or on the vigil of the Saint, a huge multitude flowing together thither. of the Christian confidence of many people of Ghent toward St. Godeleva, whom, intent on the pilgrimage of Gistel, I had had as companions in the passage-boat, wont daily to be conveyed from Ghent to Bruges and back, where they openly narrated their discomforts, on account of which they sought Gistel, although at Ghent a present remedy was at hand, in the most celebrated relics of St. Godeleva, which we shall show in the paragraph next following to be cultivated with the highest veneration in the little Beguinage (that is, the lodging of virgins living together). Not a few of those supplicants I recognized, while on the very feast day we tarried together at Gistel. Not less is the religion of the people of Bruges toward the Saint, at whose sacred blood among the Nuns there is, through the whole time of the festivity, almost perpetual supplication; which nevertheless never hinders but that on the solemn day of 6 July, not the least part of the townsmen run out to Gistel: let the same be the judgment concerning the other neighboring towns. This indeed I can holily profess, that I have never seen in so small a place so many men going to and fro in emulation, so many coaches, carts, chariots, and vehicles of that kind collected, that scarcely space remained by which a passage might conveniently lie open: moreover, on the road leading from Gistel to the old monastery or well, a nearly continuous and almost concatenated series of pilgrims.

[110] The apparatus is equal to the festivity, Equal to so great a celebrity is the religious apparatus of the temple of Gistel, equal to the expectation of the flowing-together people is the solemnity, all things composed for piety. That a proper ecclesiastical Office of St. Godeleva was once recited also in the parish church of Gistel, I think is beyond doubt, although perhaps no one today has sufficiently distinguished what or of what sort was proper to that church, or in what things different from the monastic Office of the monastery of the nuns. That it was not wont to be celebrated on one and the same rite, nor under the same either formulas or lections in both places, prove, unless I am deceived, the very diverse Offices, found among the present religious Godelevians, which no one would admit could have been used in the same old monastery, at least at the same time: whence it deservedly came to me to suspect that some were proper to the monastery itself, others to the clergy of Gistel (where we know seven chaplaincies were founded, among which the third in order was always called of St. Godeleva) to that clergy, I say, some were proper; others perhaps to other places, in which through those times singular festivities were held, of which now, after the whole country was so often devastated, no certain notice survives. But of the Offices and Mass enough has been said §8.

[111] a solemn Office and Mass: This above all we there observed, that those proper Masses and Offices, all ancient, are now obsolete, probably by the first Bishops of Bruges, from the prescript of the Council of Trent and the bulls of St. Pius V, altogether abrogated, so that consequently neither at Gistel, nor in the Godelevian monastery of Bruges, can anything proper of St. Godeleva be used today. The canonical Hours are said from the common of Virgins in the first place, which there necessarily follows the Mass of the same order, I spoke of thy testimonies, with the prayer, O God who among the rest, so that we may understand that no doubt there remains concerning the inviolate virginity of the holy Patroness. On the first day of the festivity, 6 July, it is a double of the first class, or a most solemn feast with an Octave: moreover on the day of the Exaltation, 30 July, there is again an Office of the Saint of a double rite of the second class; and on both those days, it is a feast of obligation or of precept, from immemorial prescription, as by word and writings the Reverend Lord Pastor and Dean of Gistel testified, the pious clients of St. Godeleva namely hastening of their own accord and in emulation to celebrate those feasts, which that it has for many centuries been received by inviolable use, will also appear below from the miracles, described by that cleric of Gistel who carried them from the year 1488 to 1506; among which will be found the wonderful punishment of one who had violated the feast of the exaltation of Bl. Godeleva by laboring servilely. It is the miracle second in order in the second class.

[112] But the chapel of the very Saint To the veneration of their most holy Guardian and the celebrity of her cult, in these last years the most devout foster-children have contributed whatever can seem to be desired in that place. Since the whole machine of the magnificent temple, the tower excepted, is said once to have been destroyed, and thus to have remained still in the year 1609, as the registers of the bishopric of Bruges record, where in that year it is thus read: 6 July the Most Reverend, having set out for Gistel on the feast of St. Godeleva, was present at the supplication, visited … the church ruined except for the walls and columns: since, I say, it once lay thus, even today in its whole front part, as far as it stretches to the tower, it exhibits nothing but ruined walls and columns. But the three rear naves have been restored, of which the middle constitutes an ample and capacious choir, adorned with its own stalls, the chief altar being dedicated to the Patroness of the Church, as we said above, the Bl. Virgin Mary Assumed, which, in some notable part of it changed and restored, we saw consecrated by the present Most Illustrious Bishop, when in the said festivity he visited the parish itself, at which same time he also rendered fit for sacred [use] the altar of St. Godeleva, in her own or left nave, erected from the foundations not long ago.

[113] Moreover the chapel, as they themselves call it, or rather the Godelevian nave, much more elegant than the rest, occupies the left side of the temple, the already said altar, very magnificent, adorning the place not a little. The picture is the same which stands in several places at Gistel, representing the ceremony of the nuptials by which the Saint was joined with Bertulf: but the highest part of it is occupied by the statue of the same Saint with the executioners strangling her; frequent too there and in all the altars or chapels of St. Godeleva everywhere is that representation which we here exhibit. The walls round about are clothed with one work, with pictures most aptly disposed in order, by which the chief miracles of the Saint are artificially enough expressed, an illustrious argument at all events of the most devout propension of the people of Gistel toward their most holy Patroness, chiefly of those curators, who are called masters and administrators of the chapel of St. Godeleva, received, I suppose, from that pious confraternity of zealous [men], which in the places cited above Sanderus, most deserving of the affairs of the people of Gistel, deservedly praised at length. By wooden bars skillfully made, that whole nave in its front part is so shut off that from outside access lies open to no one, save on those days on which the wonted concourse to the Saint was wont to be made.

[114] The water especially salutary for driving off diseases, we have said and shall say hereafter is drawn from the most famous well of the monastery, which there they call Pitkens; A well there furnishes water. and that those may not lack this medicinal aid, to whom sometimes there is not leisure or means to proceed to that old monastery, another well in the aforesaid Godelevian nave has supplied [it], which once, exposed in the open, rendered deformed that nave or chapel of which we treat, a window lying open in the very outermost wall of the temple, through which, even the said temple being closed, it could be drawn with pitchers by those passing by. Provision has been made for all inconveniences, both by closing the well itself and the window, and a pump being fabricated before the bar of the nave, by whose aid the water itself is more easily drawn out for the aid and solace of the arriving pilgrims, whom I beheld drawing the aforesaid water there in great number. I asked more curiously what virtue they believed to be in that water, since the true well of St. Godeleva, not there, but in the place where she was slain, was believed to have the disease-driving power, and not the water which had been nearer the sepulchre. It was answered; that this water too is drunk by pilgrims, and that many benefits are reported thence,

because in the aforesaid well the relics of the very Saint had been immersed, whence it too had been rendered blessed and salutary.

[115] It opportunely happened, while I was at Gistel, that those very relics, wont to be immersed in the well, came into the hands of the Most Illustrious Bishop. The diggers had found them, who two or three days before had cleaned out the well, blessed through the relics of the Saint, seen by us. lest in the great drought, as it then was, water should be lacking to those requiring [it]. We contemplated a very small cylinder, not exceeding the thickness and length of the ring-finger, with glass on each side adorned with silver rings, which, when they were loosed, there appeared glass covered with wax, which being extracted, we found a parchment wrapping, containing a very small particle of the sacred bone, but yet fortified with no testimony or seal, so that thou mayst perceive all these things done in good faith. A little silver chain, affixed to each head of the cylinder, furnished a handle, by which, fixed to the wall of the well, the whole cylinder thus remained perpetually immersed in the water, and by that means some medicinal virtue was communicated to that element; just as the nuns of Bruges explained to us, that they furnish to the sick water in which by an equal reasoning the sacred relics of St. Godeleva had been immersed: which we believe was an example to the Beguines of Ghent, and other places where the same are kept, that there the waters, blessed through the sacred remains, might be esteemed no less salutiferous than at the true well of Gistel, God without doubt compensating the confidence of good men through the merits of St. Godeleva.

[116] To this paragraph I shall impose a colophon with that part of the festivity The solemn supplication on her day. which contributes most to the celebrity of the Saint, namely with those testimonies of public veneration which are both sacred and common. There is done, among many other things, says the Reverend Lord Pastor and Dean, a solemn Mass about the tenth hour, within which a sermon, after a solemn supplication with the relics. It is concluded with the Venerable Sacrament, which is carried about by the Pastor through the level and pleasant, but large enough, circuit. The celebrity was graced by the Most Illustrious Bishop himself, led to the temple by the magistracy with set ceremonies, where, a pastoral preaching being held with immense zeal and fervor for the most crowded congregation, having pontifically officiated at the altar, he himself wished in the supplication to supply the place of the parish priest, carrying the most august Sacrament, however wearied from the offices already performed. The venerating train was led by the very sodalities of the town, and the confraternity of St. Godeleva, represented by some virgin, with torches lit, all modest both in habit and gait. The Venerable Sacrament was preceded by the greater reliquary, borne by two Capuchin Fathers, vested in a stole; the lesser by two secular priests, wearing copes; an incredible multitude following behind, both of inhabitants and of pilgrims flowing together, in the highest order and remarkable modesty.

§ XI. On the relics of St. Godeleva, exposed to veneration in various places through Belgium, and in some frequented with a great concourse of people.

That nearly all the sacred remains or sacred bones of the holy Virgin and Martyr remained joined together at Gistel and in the parish church of Gistel, The chief relics of St. Godeleva through the first centuries, is gathered even from this, that no, or certainly the rarest, traces anywhere appear of any cult exhibited to them elsewhere, which are much more ancient than the seventeenth century, just passed. I know that at Ghent in the lesser Beguinage, as we call it in Belgic, or congregation of virgins, there exists a testimony, presently to be reported in its place, from which it is established that some part of the clotted blood was given as a gift to a certain friend by the abbess of Gistel in the year 1548: I know that in the church of Nieuwpoort there was of the same blood, even from the fifteenth century. But of these relics we do not here properly inquire; our investigation is engaged in this, whether in any other church, outside Gistel, they were by legitimate authority exposed or honored, before the visitation or recognition made by the Most Illustrious Christophori on 6 July 1623? A doubtful question indeed, since in several places through Flanders and the neighboring regions relics of this Saint can be had, which when, whence, or how they came thither, no one today would easily explain, so that consequently it cannot even be divined at what time or on what occasion they were received from one or the other bier. In the registers of the bishopric of Bruges, at 7 January 1615 there is had: The Most Reverend (Rodoan) gave to the Abbot of St. John of Ypres relics of St. Leodegar and Christolius Pontiffs and Martyrs, of Vincent martyr, of Arnulf Pontiff confessor, of St. Godeleva Virgin and Martyr. Which last, whether they were of bones or of blood, I do not sufficiently distinguish.

[118] For the rest, at least negatively, and for the sake of further investigation, they seem to have remained at Gistel up to the seventeenth century. it is lawful to argue, from this, that after sedulous diligence applied, it is not hitherto established to us that pledges of this kind, besides the already said ones of Ypres, translated elsewhere, had a religious veneration before the already said epoch of the year 1623. Certainly if thou run through with me the places in which something certain concerning the relics of St. Godeleva is found, as at Bruges at St. Andrew's and in the abbey of Eeckhout, at Ghent in the Beguinage and in the sacristy of the cathedral church, at Sleidinge and Pittem; at Tournai, Namur, Ypres, Kortrijk, Bailleul, Ostend; they all do not surpass in age the predetermined time; so that if perhaps elsewhere others exist, more ancient than those, we can safely affirm this, that it has not come to our notice; besides that it is most likely that some parts or particles of the sacred body were communicated with the monastery of the nuns of Gistel (commonly called Pitkens), whence perhaps they could be derived into other hands; and in turn from those virgins parts of the clotted or calcined blood, granted as a return-gift to the parish church. It will be lawful here to suppose these things for a while, until we be better instructed from elsewhere. Of the other relics of the Cathedral of Ghent, once recognized by Bishop Jansenius, and most lately by the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Philippe Erard vander Noot, as also of the Mechelen relics of our novitiate, there will be treatment below. We do not deny that elsewhere relics were laid up, but honored with a peculiar cult before the aforesaid year 1623.

[119] after the year 1623 distributed into various parts. What and what sort of bones survive entire in the reliquary of Gistel, the instruments recited above do not explain: this is established from the authentic [act] of the Most Illustrious Christophori, made of his visitation, that the same sacred relics, embalmed with fragrant balm, and distinguished into eight little bundles, wrapped in red silk and golden threads, were again reposited and enclosed in the same bier. The last act of the present Most Illustrious Bishop distinguishes the smaller bones, separated from those eight bundles. Moreover the same Most Illustrious Christophori confesses that he took for himself some parts of the bones from the bier of Gistel, in the presence of the temporal Lady, and of the magistracy and people of Gistel. Finally from his register we have learned that other parts received from thence were given to the temporal Lord, to the Abbot of St. Andrew, and to Captain Camargo; as being the father-in-law of the Baron of Gistel, and having in some sort in his name attended the solemnity. There had also been present at the aforesaid visitation the Reverend Lord John vande Velde archpriest (of the church of Bruges) in the name and by commission of Maximilian Bishop of Tournai, alternately with the aforesaid abbot at St. Andrew's, patron of the church of Gistel; on which title, I suppose, there was delivered to him a part from the spine of the back of the said body of St. Godeleva virgin and martyr, enclosed in a little box, covered with red silk and embroidered with the needle, which he should carry to the Most Illustrious Bishop of Tournai, who had requested those relics, as appears from the register fol. 3 verso, and from the instrument given at Bruges in the year of the Lord 1623, on the seventeenth day of the month of August.

[120] Inquiry being made at Tournai, whither afterward that part from the spine of the back had come; Those which were not sent to the Bishop of Tournai, and there being procured through the Reverend Father John Baptist de Waudripont, Rector of our college there, from the venerable Chapter an authentic testimony of the existence of the same in the sacristy of the cathedral of the Bl. Virgin Mary, which it will help, in honor of the Saint, to here transcribe entire; thus it sounds: The President, the deanship being vacant, and the Chapter of the Cathedral church of Tournai, to all, etc. We make known and attest, that in the treasury of the Cathedral church of Tournai, in the new cupboard, fixed in the wall, on the right side of the entrance, or on the Epistle side, on the fourth shelf or base, in the sixth number, is found a leathern little case, in which is enclosed a reliquary altogether of crystal, girt about with golden circles, from the gift of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Maximilian Villain of Ghent, while he lived Bishop of Tournai. In one reliquary indeed rest the relics of St. Piatus, and the spine of the back of St. Godeleva, to which is joined the golden seal of the aforesaid Most Illustrious and Most Reverend the same Lord Maximilian the Bishop; and the aforesaid relics are every year exposed to the veneration of the faithful in our aforesaid Cathedral church. In faith of which we have ordered the present letters to be expedited by one of our secretaries and fortified with our seal. Given in the chapter place on the 4th day of September in the year 1719. By mandate of the Most Ample and Venerable Lords, Signed Van Melle secretary, and the secret seal of the Chapter of the church of Tournai is affixed.

[121] The relics had been sent to Tournai on 17 August 1623; and afterward to the Bishop of Ghent. not long after, namely on 9 February of the year 1624, the oft-said Most Illustrious Christophori, desiring to satisfy the pious affect of devotion which the very illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Antonius Triest, Bishop of Ghent, bears toward the relics of the sacred body of St. Godeleva virgin and martyr, gave and transmitted to him as a gift a notable and entire bone from the spine of the back of the said Saint. Of it Sanderus somewhere makes mention, and from the thinness of that bone argues that St. Godeleva was of a slight body, contrary to what the Anonymous, writer of the greater life, testifies, who at number 17 depicts her to us as tall in stature. But whatever of this there is, since I had long ago understood that the relics of the Saint are frequented with great devotion and concourse of people in the little Beguinage of Ghent, I soon began to suspect that that same sacred bone was granted by the Most Illustrious Triest to those virgins, whence the solemn cult there could have taken its beginning. But afterward, by the labor of our Father Francis Cocquyt, the Reverend Lord Giles van Remseke, present pastor of the same Beguinage, better instructed me, from whose faithful report the things which pertain to the Ghent cult I shall presently subjoin, when I shall first have advised that the aforesaid relics, sent to the Most Illustrious Triest, were by him reposited in the sacristy of the Cathedral church, where the said Father Cocquyt, in letters given 19 October 1719, testified that he had seen them, decently enclosed in a shrine, together with the authentic testimony of the Most Illustrious Christophori.

[122] That very thing the said Father Jacobus de Pauw, also of our Society, had sent to me on the already said day, Another little chest in the church of Ghent, and afterward destined hither anew, authentically described by the very Reverend and most Erudite Lord Goethals, Graduated Canon and Secretary of the Chapter of the Cathedral church of Ghent. But since I have already treated enough of it, it is not worth the labor to insert it here; my whole investigation was rather borne to this, that the last words of the testimony be elucidated, by which the Provost, Dean, and Chapter aforesaid declared also and attested,

that in their said church there is moreover kept a wooden little chest, dyed with a red color, of a length of about a foot and a half, and of a height (from the bottom up to the top of the roof) a little greater than half a foot: and that on one part in the middle of the roof there is an oval gilded little box, with this inscription, in black letters: Relics of St. Godelepha the Martyr. The aforesaid little chest is duly closed, they say, and fortified on each side with the seals respectively of the Most Reverend Lord Bishop Triest and of our Chapter. In faith of all which, we have caused these to be expedited under our seal, and the signature of the Reverend Lord our confrere and secretary. At Ghent in the year from the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand seven hundred and twenty, on the sixteenth day of the month of February. Signed Goethals, and a seal impressed in red wax.

[123] These things more kindled my pious curiosity, that what before I had caused to be requested through friends, most lately unsealed, this I might at last obtain from the benevolence of the Most Illustrious Bishop of Ghent already named above, namely that, to the honor of St. Godeleva, he would deign to unseal that little chest, and communicate with me the requisite testimony concerning the relics kept in that chest. I profess that I owe very much to the Most Illustrious Patron, and to the already praised very Reverend and most Erudite Lord Canon and Secretary of the Chapter Goethals, that satisfaction was made to my desire, so opportunely that scarcely three days before these things were to be subjected to the press, his new testimony, most accurately deduced, came to my hands: from which it will appear, what I above intimated I suspected, namely that elsewhere, besides at Gistel, relics of St. Godeleva, long ago laid up, can indeed lie hidden, but which have not been honored with a singular veneration. I dare to be confident that something will accrue to them from those things which in this longer paragraph have not been carelessly illustrated. For the rest, the praised instrument seemed to me of so great worth, serving also for other notices, that I have not doubted to weave it in here word for word entire. Thus it sounds:

[124] he exhibited other relics, In the name of the Lord. Amen. The undersigned Graduated Canon and Secretary of the Chapter of the exempt Cathedral church of St. Bavo of Ghent, I declare and attest that I, together with the very Reverend Lord John vanden Hove Canon and Treasurer, on the part of our said Chapter, was present and stood by the Most Reverend and Most Illustrious Lord Bishop, on 27 February of this year 1720, when he opened and visited the shrine of the relics of St. Godeleva (which I lately described in the attestation which I gave concerning that matter by the ordination of the Chapter), and that in this shrine, duly closed and sealed with the seals (as I said in the said attestation) of the Most Illustrious Lord Bishop Triest and of our Chapter, we found a small little chest, likewise duly closed, and sealed with the same seals already said: and in this little chest was enclosed a little purse, in which was contained one of the greater bones or vertebrae of the spine of the back of the said Saint. To the said little chest, upon a little cushion, was tied this following attestation.

[125] laid up there in the year 1638, "Antonius Triest, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See, Bishop of Ghent, Nicholas de Haudion the Provost being absent, Franciscus de Ghistelles Dean and the Chapter of the Cathedral church of St. Bavo of Ghent, we make known that we, on the day of the date of the present letters, being gathered capitularly after the high Mass, took these sacred relics of St. Godeleva the martyr from the chest of the relics of St. Pharahildis the Virgin, and enclosed them separately in this little shrine, that they might be specially and with greater reverence and solemnity cultivated. But lest the attestations of our elders and the testimonies of the truth of the same relics should be obliterated, we enclosed them, affixed together, in the little chest of the relics of St. Bavo, our Patron, on the same day. Done at Ghent in the place of our Chapter, in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and thirty-eight, on the twenty-ninth day of the month of September. In the fold was had: by mandate of the Most Reverend Lord and the Reverend Lords: and it was signed M. Guyart." But the said little purse, in which the aforesaid relics were enclosed, had affixed a tiny little scrap of parchment, with this inscription, in a very old character: A bone from the body of St. Godeleva the martyr.

[126] and recognized by the first Bishop of Ghent Cornelius Jansenius Then I sought and found those which in the above-written notification they call the attestations of our elders and testimonies of the truth of the same relics, which are of this tenor: "In the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred and seventy-four, on the fifteenth day of the month of September, the Most Reverend Lord, the Lord Cornelius Jansenius, first Bishop of Ghent, there being present Marcus Stercke Dean, Clement Crabbeels Archdeacon, Peter Gillis Treasurer, Peter Simonis Archpriest, and many other Canons of the Cathedral church of the blessed Bavo (the Reverend Lord Viglius Zwichem, Provost of the church, being occupied at Brussels in the royal affairs), opened the bier which was said to be of St. Pharahildis: since indeed it was much overrun with mold within and without and for a great part dissolved; from this, that for nearly two whole years, together with all the other relics of the church, on account of the fear of the Geux and heretics who impiously everywhere and cruelly ranged with slaughters and burnings, it had been placed in secret and subterranean places. But the bier being opened, there was found in it a small shrine, well closed on every side: which being opened, there was found a little bundle, tied with cords, with such an inscription: These are the relics of St. Pharahildis the virgin with dust and certain bones from her body, which were found behind the bed of St. Bavo, when it was broken, that it might be better and more honestly built up.

[127] "But in the very bundle were found four other little papers, recognized and approved in the year 1574, each affixed to its relics, of the following tenor: Dust from the body of St. Pharahildis, anciently burnt. 2: The jaw of St. Pharahildis. 3: The jaw with three teeth of St. Pharahildis, and other bones from her body. 4: A bone from the body of St. Godelif the virgin. And all these, just as they were found, were translated into cleaner linen and another wooden little chest; together also with a certain other bundle, which was found in the aforesaid bier of St. Pharahildis, in which bundle was wrapped the cowl of St. Bavo, as a certain schedule fixed above [it] had, together with certain letters on parchment, fortified with the seal of St. Bavo, of the following tenor: These relics translated the Lord Belto, abbot of the monastery of Ghent, into that shrine, on the fifth of the Ides of April, and confirmed them with his seal, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1175, in the eighth indiction, the concurrents being 2, the Epact 26, Louis King of the Franks, Philip Count of the Flanders, Everard Bishop of Tournai. In testimony of this matter and of the translation of the aforesaid relics, the aforesaid Most Reverend Lord caused the present letters to be fortified with the appending of his seal." And those letters were written on parchment, to which hangs, with a scrap of the same parchment, the seal of the said Most Reverend Lord, with this circumscription, seal of Cornelius Jansenius by the grace of God Bishop of Ghent *, impressed on red wax and enclosed in a little box of white iron. In faith of all and each of which, I the undersigned wrote and subsigned these with my own hand, at the request of the Reverend Fathers of the Society of Jesus. Done at Ghent on the eleventh of March 1720. Signed Goethals, Canon and Secretary of the said Chapter. Of these enough has been said, now let us come to the Beguinage of Ghent.

The second part of the preceding paragraph, on the relics of St. Godeleva

[128] What sort of relics [are there in the Beguinage,] Concerning the relics of St. Godeleva deposited in the aforesaid Beguinage and honored with a most solemn cult, the already said Reverend Lord Pastor van Remseke bears testimony, which I here report word for word. In the chapel of the infirmary, sacred to St. Godeleva, in the lesser Beguinage, called Terhoyen, of the city of Ghent, various little Particles of the relics of this Saint are found. The first is guarded in a wooden bier, skillfully made and gilded, which is yearly solemnly carried about on the feast of the said Saint on 6 July, and also on the octave of the same. In whose upper part is enclosed a gilded little box, in which is contained a little paper, in which is wrapped a particle of white matter, which they say to be of the blood of the Martyr, clotted in her throat and changed into lime at the time of the martyrdom. Likewise in the same box is enclosed a small segment of woven silk, in which is wrapped a particle of the Martyr's skull immersed in cotton, and to it is set this attestation, inscribed on parchment. The undersigned, pastor of the place of Sleidinge, testifies that he, on this second of May of the year one thousand six hundred and fifty-nine, gave a particle of the relics from the skull of St. Godeleva to the Lord Pastor in the Beguinage of Bl. Mary Terhoyen at Ghent, the episcopal act of his church concerning the truth of the same relics being preserved. Done at Ghent on the day as above. It was signed Franciscus Staes pastor in Sleidinge. Of the faithful collation made with the original, the praised van Remseke testifies on 24 July 1719; thus proceeding further:

[129] how and whence received, There is also had another particle of the relics, enclosed in a silver shrine, which is exposed to the people to be kissed. Likewise in a small box, oblong, hanging from a silver chain, there is had a particle of the relics, which they immerse in the waters while they are blessed. But this box, compacted with glue, cannot be opened. Over all these is found a certification, which here follows, inscribed on parchment. The Belgic autograph Remseke transcribed, I here render into Latin. We Godeleva Payers, by the grace of God, abbess of the monastery and hospital of St. Godeleva at Gistel, to all who shall see or hear read these letters, make known, that on the last day of April of the year 1548, a man dear to us and our singular friend Louis Boonis, born at Louvain, and a citizen and inhabitant of the celebrated emporium of Antwerp, came to us, humbly supplicating and praying that we would bestow on him a particle of the relics of the blood of the holy, reverend virgin and martyr, the Lady Godeleva, which out of charity and benevolence we willingly granted, to augment the honor of the aforesaid reverend holy virgin Godeleva. In faith of which, we the above-named Abbess have caused our seal to be affixed to these on the day and year as above. That the seal of the said Abbess hangs from the letters in red wax, Remseke testifies; at last adding these things:

[130] They also have another particle of the said relics, and how solemnly they are there honored. set in silver, which is carried to the sick and afflicted in throat or eyes. But the said relics are visited and cultivated through the year, and especially through the Octave of the feast of the said Saint, with a concourse of people which cannot be described, and scarcely believed; so that from the middle of the fifth hour of the morning, when the gate of the Beguinage is opened, up to the ninth hour of the evening, when it is closed, the relics cannot be approached without difficulty and pressure, and the whole Beguinage is filled with those going and returning. Several vats of water too, on each day, are blessed in honor and with the application of the Saint's relics, and are consumed by the visitors. They also bless little silk cords, with the invocation of the Saint and the touch of the relics, of which they sell many hundreds each year, to be wound about and worn on afflicted throats.

and to be carried. Thus far the praised Father Cocquyt from Remseke. I had moreover asked whether any graces or benefits were there known to have been obtained by the prayers, merits, and intercession of Bl. Godeleva? It was answered; that of these indeed many things are spread among the common people, but that nothing authentic can be exhibited, or marked with legitimate approbation. The Office of the Saint is said as at Gistel, in the first place from the common of a Virgin and Martyr, and is protracted through the whole Octave by the wonted rite.

[131] From these thou clearly perceivest with how great veneration and confidence they cultivate St. Godeleva, The celebrated cult of the same not only the Beguines, but the people of Ghent, one may say, well-nigh all: from that consolation, I suppose, which pious souls report thence, although the obtained benefits do not straightway approach to the true appearance of a miracle, nor is a more accurate notice had of them. That a part of the clotted blood, which is there kept, could have been there from the very sixteenth century, thou easily understandest, and thence communicated with the people of Sleidinge, although the Beguines themselves are ignorant of the year in which they received those relics, whether from Louis Boonis or from his heirs, or began to cultivate them. For the rest, that pious exchange of relics, entered upon in the year 1659, between the Pastor of the Beguinage of Ghent and that other of the village of Sleidinge, not far distant from Ghent toward the North, adds light to the things already said, and leads us by the hand to subjoin something also concerning the notable cult of St. Godeleva among the people of Sleidinge. More prolix notices concerning that matter the Reverend Lord Martin Steyaert, a worthy nephew by a brother of the once most celebrated Doctor of Louvain of the same surname, suggested, among which I marvel that this is wanting, which the Reverend Lord Breydel, Pastor of Eernegem in the diocese of Bruges, asserted, that the church of Sleidinge is dedicated to St. Godeleva. But other things the aforesaid Steyaert so explains that from his writings I am openly instructed that from the Most Illustrious Triest the relics of the Saint came thither, with others of the holy Gerio martyr and Amantius confessor, on 16 August 1653.

[132] This the words of the Reverend Lord Franciscus Staes cited above prove, at Sleidinge not far from Ghent. parish priest of Sleidinge, in a petition offered to the Most Illustrious Triest, when he thus speaks: Franciscus Staes, pastor of the place of Sleidinge, sets forth with due reverence, how by the gift of the very Illustrious his Lord Bishop aforesaid, on 16 August 1653 he received certain particles of the relics of the holy Gerio martyr, Amantius confessor, and St. Godeleva martyr, with the faculty of exposing the same to the public cult and veneration of the faithful in his parish church, etc. Hence it is plain from what source the relics of the Beguinage mentioned above proceeded, inasmuch as they were received from that Lord Staes. Hither properly pertains Steyaert's testimony concerning the cult of St. Godeleva at Sleidinge, which he describes graphically enough. For the rest, he says, with the highest concourse of parishioners and neighbors those relics, from 6 July up to 14 of the same month, both days inclusive, are visited. Each year the number of the confessing grows through the single days of the novena, on which the morning time is set, as a feast is celebrated in our church. Water is blessed through the relics, enclosed in a lesser chest, and is carried away in every direction to be offered to the sick. The rumors which are brought hither and thither concerning those healed and preserved from the disease of the throat, as being less authentic, I here do not subjoin. Signed M. Steyaert, Sleidinge 17 October 1719. These things being thus explained, we must return to the distribution made by the Most Illustrious Christophori.

[133] The Abbot of St. Andrew gave some to the nuns of St. Godeleva: Of the aforesaid relics, given as a gift by himself, that part which had fallen to the Most Ample Lord Henri vander Zype, abbot at St. Andrew's near Bruges, survives deposited in the church of the same abbey, for those which were given by the same abbot to the novitiate, or the present monastery of the Godelevian nuns at Bruges, and which I venerated there, he himself had received from the Reverend Lord Blootacker, first chaplain of the Most Illustrious Christophori, afterward canon of the cathedral church, as the authentic instrument makes faith, transcribed by me in the very monastery, by which he makes known to all whom it concerns, that in the year of the Lord 1623, on the sixth day of July, namely on the very feast of St. Godeleva virgin and martyr, he was present at Gistel, as patron of the church, at the visitation of the relics of the same Saint solemnly made there by the Most Reverend Lord Dionysius Christophori, Bishop of Bruges, and that there the same Most Reverend Lord then, with the assent of the standing magistracy, took for himself some parts of the said relics from the bier in which they were contained. But since the aforesaid Most Reverend Lord always held and cultivated the same relics as true and certain, and during the time of his life committed them to the custody of the venerable Lord John Blootacker, then his Chaplain, and now Canon of the Cathedral church of St. Donatian at Bruges, but before his death, by a donation among the living, gave the same as a gift to the same Lord Canon; by the present letters we also attest, that we obtained from the same Lord Canon two entire bones or vertebrae from the spine of the back of the aforesaid Virgin, and immediately gave one of them as a gift to the novitiate of the monastery of St. Godeleva, or the reformed Benedictines, to promote there her cult, honor, and love. In faith of which, etc. Given in the year 1630, on the 26th day of June. He himself signs with the impression of his own seal.

[134] others he sent to Ypres and Kortrijk But a greater treasure of the relics of St. Godeleva remained in the abbey of St. Andrew, than can conveniently be explained in a word. A longer description of them the renowned Wale sent to me, whose compendium it will suffice to have here exhibited. First I report those which I said above the Most Ample abbot Henri received from the Most Illustrious Christophori, as he himself testified, and which, enclosed in a little red silk bag, have affixed an inscription of this kind: A part of the relics, which I had from our Bishop Dionysius, after the public visitation of the same made at Gistel. Joined are the letters of the aforesaid Prelate, given 5 March of the year 1624, and subscribed by the same, of the same argument as those of which we have already reported some. That I may say it in few words, he testifies that he gave as a gift to the Prelate Henri a notable part of a bone from the spine of the back of the said Saint. Parts quite similar, as we have most lately heard, the same abbot received from the Reverend Lord Blootacker mentioned above, whence one of those bones fell to the reformed Godelevian Nuns. The testimonial letters, more fully deduced, would in vain be repeated here; hear the sole attestation of the same Abbot: The relics of St. Godeleva; namely a part from the spine of the back, which I received from the Lord Canon John Blootacker; entire indeed, but I cut out from it for our Most Reverend Bishop (then Nicholas de Haudion) a notable part on 2 May 1645. At the side was had: I also cut off some other particles for a certain monastery of Ypres, and for the Beguinage of Kortrijk, of which below.

[135] A longer history the aforesaid abbot Henri wove concerning the nobler relics of the same St. Godeleva, several he preserved in the sacristy of his monastery. which he found after the death of the Reverend Lord Adrian van Dale, while he lived Subprior in his monastery, concerning which, when he had for some time doubted, when he read the testimony of the aforesaid Adrian, in which he most holily professes that he received them from the Lord Lantsoght, a priest well enough known, and before pastor of the collegiate church of Bl. Mary of Bruges, who reported under oath that he had them from the religious of the old monastery of St. Godeleva in de Gansestraet; and that they are one entire rib from the body of St. Godeleva, which nevertheless he himself had broken for the easier convenience of preserving [it]: these letters being sedulously and accurately weighed, the praised Abbot believed them to be true relics of St. Godeleva, because that man, he says, from whom he (the Lord Adrian) asserts he received them, namely the Lord John Lantsoght, was a man upright, pious, and learned, and very well known to me, who would not have wished to deceive him, especially since he reported under oath that he received them from the religious of St. Godeleva, whom I believe to have been the last abbess herself of the old monastery, and sister Bernardine the lay-sister, who with the abbess performed almost all the final affairs of the monastery, and had received from that Lord Lantsoght various benefits, etc. I do not think there is need of more arguments. These things the Most Ample abbot wrote on the last day of August 1649. We return again to the Most Illustrious Christophori.

[136] That those sacred bones which he had taken for himself from the bier of Gistel were of no small number, On the reliquary in the abbey of Eeckhout. the Canon Blootacker just cited shows, who also bestowed a part of a bone on the Most Ample abbot of Eeckhout, the Lord Nicholas Troostenberg, which I there saw set in an oval reliquary, surrounded with gilded rays and covered with crystalline glass; on account of which part, though not greatly notable, there is done there a double office of St. Godeleva on 8 July, translated namely on account of the Octave of the Apostles. The Mass is taken, They waited for me, the Gospel from the feast of St. Agatha. The Lord Blootacker testifies that he gave a part of a bone from the body of St. Godeleva virgin and martyr, which my Most Reverend Lord Dionysius Christophori, Bishop of Bruges, had received with the assent of the standing magistracy of Gistel, etc. This part therefore of the bone of the aforesaid holy Virgin, he held and cultivated as true and certain, and committed to me, as then his chaplain, to be kept, and at last before his death, by a donation among the living, gave the same as a gift. In faith of which, etc. Done at Bruges on the 8th day of May 1645. And this is the whole reckoning of the cult in the abbey of Eeckhout; nor do I esteem that more is done in the other of St. Andrew, however enriched with several relics, because all the people of Bruges are wont to run together in emulation, not to those monasteries, but to the oft-said nunnery of the nuns, both on the festivity of the Saint on the sixth day of July and through its whole subsequent octave.

On the relics of St. Godeleva, the third part.

A somewhat longer excursion, On the cult of the relics at Kortrijk; for visiting the relics of St. Godeleva in every direction, suggests so abundant matter, that I hold it necessary to divide it. I advised above at number 102 that the sacred remains of the Saint, happily snatched from the hands of the raging heretics, were carried off by the Catholic garrison of Kortrijk into that city, and there deposited for about twelve years, namely from the year 1577 to 1589, so that it ought to seem least of all a wonder if in the minds of the pious citizens the little fires of veneration toward the Saint have not yet plainly fallen out. A cult persevering in the parish church, dedicated to St. Martin, at the altar of St. Anne, thrusts in the suspicion that there in that place, or at least in the sacristy of that temple, the sacred shrine of Gistel was once deposited, although I have not been able to learn this with certainty. But however it was, it was written back to me that there still the memory of St. Godeleva is cultivated, not without some relics of the very Saint, which, as tradition bears, were received from the people of Gistel, in recognition of the officious observance shown to them for so many years. Moreover I judge that the Beguines, neighbors to that church, were excited by pious emulation, so that they too so solicitously sought the relics of the same Virgin and Martyr, at last happily obtained, from the so-often

already praised distributor of the relics of St. Godeleva, the Most Ample abbot vander Zype, as thou hast at number 129; which by those virgins, most devout cultivatresses at all events of St. Godeleva, are yearly honored with a becoming festivity, with a solemn Mass and Lauds, wax candles being lit through the whole octave, and the relics, covered with a silver shrine, being exposed: concerning which the Reverend Lord Leonard Schaerts, at that time Pastor, left it thus attested: The relics of St. Godeleva Virgin and Martyr, approved by the Vicariate of Tournai, the see being vacant, by a public instrument, and here placed on the vigil of the Nativity of the Lord 1644 by me the undersigned, deputed for this. That likewise at Ostend such relics are exposed and honored by the people, it has been narrated to me for certain; but Gistel, not far distant thence, easily allures all the pious clients of St. Godeleva to itself.

[138] and a more celebrated [cult at Ypres,] A far more celebrated cult those relics have obtained which the same Most Ample abbot Henri asserted he had cut off, for a certain monastery of Ypres, concerning which the very Reverend Lords the Vicars general of the vacant see of Ypres testified, on 16 August 1714, that they had seen a worn charter, corrupted by age, whose beginning begins, Henri van … Ype, abbot of the monastery of St. Andrew near Bruges, subsigned by the same and sealed with a shield charged with three leopards' heads, which is the shield of the family Vander Zype. This was rightly observed by them; since the same seal was set to the other testimonies cited by me above. But within, they say, on the right side was what follows: It pleases the Most Reverend Lord Bishop of Ypres, that there be exposed to the public veneration, in the church of the hospital of St. John of Ypres, a part of a bone from the spine of the back of St. Godeleva virgin and martyr. To all and each visiting the said church on the very feast of St. Godeleva, he grants, in the form of the Church, Indulgences of 40 days. Nowhere do indications of the times appear, but unless I am deceived, they regard about the forty-fourth year of the last century, the Episcopal chair being held by the Most Illustrious Judocus Bouckaert, who ceased to live in the year 1646, and after whom for eight years the church of Ypres remained widowed of a Pastor. The conjecture can be confirmed from this, that about the same time both to these nuns of St. John and to the Beguines of Kortrijk relics seem to have been granted by vander Zype.

[139] For nine days in all, in that temple of St. John, the festivity of St. Godeleva is most solemnly performed, in the hospital of St. John. wont to be published by a printed program, and daily frequented with several Masses and other pious exercises; but first with a solemn Mass, sermon, and Lauds, with a proper prayer of this kind: An example at once and a reward of long-suffering endurance, Lord Jesus Christ, who didst illustrate the patience of St. Godeleva thy virgin and martyr with glorious miracles, give us the virtue of sustaining adversities, through which we may merit to be crowned with her. For the augmentation of the cult, the nuns distribute printed litanies of the Saint, with an elegant image prefixed, representing the martyrdom of the Saint. Water is blessed, by the immersion of the sacred relics, wont to be offered to the sick, eagerly desired and sought, both by the townsmen and by strangers, even those distant afar. The superior of that hospital asserted that that water was preserved incorrupt for three whole years, and that many benefits were obtained thence, although none were consigned to public records. The aforesaid relics are decently enclosed in silver shrines, as also others, likewise covered with a silver covering, from the sacred calcined blood of St. Godeleva, to which through the year there is made no mean concourse of the sick; so that deservedly the so great and constant piety and so singular veneration of the nuns and of the whole people of Ypres toward the holy Godeleva ravishes all into admiration. The notices received of the whole matter I refer to the Reverend Father Henri de Vaddere, most worthy Rector of our college there.

[140] Thou wouldst say that the Flemings contend for the reward of cult and veneration, in those parts chiefly: Likewise at Bailleul in Flanders, for Bailleul too, a town distant not beyond three leagues from Ypres, celebrates the annual festivity of St. Godeleva, perhaps from religious emulation, festively in the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, where also her relics, enclosed in a silver shrine skillfully made, honored with great veneration, are offered to the people to be kissed. That they are of the sacred blood, he conjectured who in my name inspected them more attentively: but at what time they were brought thither, at what time they began to be cultivated, or by whom they were approved, he could not learn. There are, he says, those who esteem that they have been there exposed for eighty years, so that at least thou easily understandest that the cult of St. Godeleva there is immemorial. This is certain, that on 6 July, the natal of the very Saint, a solemn Mass is celebrated of her, that of her virtues something is said in a sermon, and the celebrity is concluded with festive Lauds. That thither too there is a concourse from the neighboring peoples, for obtaining, in various diseases, graces, and that some, sometimes obtained, are testified by votive offerings, hung up as tokens of gratitude, wrote to me the same [man] who diligently scrutinized the things which pertain to St. Godeleva at Bailleul, Father John Baptist Bonte, of our Society.

[141] Hence we migrate to Pittem, a village of the diocese of Bruges, toward Kortrijk, a little more than halfway on the journey. and at Pittem, a village of the diocese of Bruges. There too St. Godeleva has a singular veneration, on account of relics there exposed, under the approbation of the Most Illustrious de Baillencourt, on 7 November 1676, whose transcript I have before my eyes. Nay in the episcopal register of that time I observed that difficulties were moved from this, that the people of Pittem were hindered from drawing water from the well of the monastery of Gistel, which they might carry to their church, to be offered to the pilgrims running together thither; which matter was composed by the aforesaid Most Illustrious Bishop in the year 1679, power being made to the people of Pittem of drawing that water and carrying it down to Pittem, for the solace of those who could not proceed to Gistel. I asked more than once, whence those relics could have come into the church of Pittem? It was answered, that most probably they are those, or a part of them, which had fallen to Captain Camargo in the visitation of the year 1623. Others thought that they were granted to the aforesaid church by the Most Illustrious Baillencourt: the opinion of all is concordant, that the relics of the Saint are held in the highest price and honor in that place. The episcopal instrument contains nothing peculiar, besides the approbation, the license of exposing, and, for fostering piety, the wonted Indulgences of 40 days.

[142] What things are had at Mechelen Flanders being traversed, the Sacred Treasury of Rayssius led me to Mechelen, thus writing page 493 of the relics of the church and novitiate of our Society at Mechelen, where he says that with us are kept two parts of the bones of St. Lawrence Levite and martyr, and a particle of a bone of St. Godeleva, by the gift of the Lady Joanna Bisschop, prioress of the abbey of St. Godeleva, of the Order of St. Benedict at Bruges, concerning which I obtained this testimony from our Father Alphonsus Huylenbroucq, confessor to the Most Eminent Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church de Alsatia de Boussu, Archbishop and Primate of Belgium, transmitted to me, and described from the autograph: Jacobus Statius, Rector of the college of the Society of Jesus at Bruges, to all who shall see these letters everlasting greeting in the Lord. Since the veneration of the sacred relics among the pious is wont to be the greater, the fuller the certitude that is had of them: we have deemed it worth the labor, to consign, by our attestation, the faith of those sacred bones and remains, which this year were given to us for the House of probation of our Society at Antwerp, and transmitted by us to the same, to the moderns and to posterity.

[143] and by whose gift they were received. Wherefore by the tenor of the present letters we make faith and attest that we obtained, in the month of October of this current year 1610, for the use of the aforesaid Probation, from the venerable little lady, sister Joanna Bisschop, prioress of the abbey of St. Godeleva, of the Order of St. Benedict, the sacred relics undersigned. First two little bones, or parts of the bones of St. Lawrence Levite and martyr, which were brought to the aforesaid abbey of St. Godeleva by the venerable Fathers of the Order of St. Benedict, who, made exiles from Utrecht by the persecution of the heretics, where there was an abbey of the same Order, entitled of St. Lawrence, were afterward confessors to the nuns of the abbey of St. Godeleva. Likewise one particle of a bone of St. Godeleva, received from the reliquary of the sacred relics of the same holy Martyr, which is wont to be there offered to the people to be venerated and kissed. Finally various little globules of the blood of the same Martyr, which the said Prioress merited to obtain from the reliquary preserving her blood. All which most holy pledges we this very year sent to Antwerp, to the said house of Probation. In faith of all these, we have subscribed these with our hand, and caused the seal of our office to be appended to the same. Given at Bruges of the Flemings this 29 November in the Christian year 1610.

[144] Lest anything in this so long series be passed over by me, Others set in altars in various places. I shall lastly note that several other churches were made partakers of the sacred relics of St. Godeleva, by the oft-praised Most Illustrious Christophori, especially those in which he consecrated altars. From his register it is detected that in the chief altar of the monastery of the Augustinian Fathers at Bruges, when it was consecrated, among others were enclosed relics of St. Godeleva on 19 May 1624. Likewise on 10 August 1625 in the altar of the Bl. Virgin Mary called of Potterie. Again on 9 October of the same year, in the altar of the episcopal domestic chapel: and on 19 October, next following, in the high altar of Wingene. In the year 1626 on the 21st day of June, they were set in the altar of the Holy Cross in the temple of St. Saviour at Bruges; on 1 August 1627 the same was done in the altar of the nuns of the Holy Spirit. In the same year on 5 September, three altars being consecrated among the rich Poor Clares, particles of the same relics were set in. Likewise on some wooden image, he placed of the bones of St. Godeleva on 3 March 1628. Finally in the aforesaid year on 28 August, among the Grey sisters, as they are here called, in an altar then fitted for sacred [use], some part of the same relics was enclosed. Nor were there afterward wanting relics, which the Most Illustrious Haudion used, when on 3 April in the year 1642 he consecrated four altars in St. Andrew's near Bruges, of which three were enriched with the same relics. Besides those already said, the Most Illustrious de Baillencourt must have had surviving particles, when on 22 August 1671, in the parish church of Ostend, he consecrated two altars, relics of the holy Martyrs Livinus, Godeleva, and the eleven thousand Virgins being set in. But of these thus far: now let us survey the holy progeny of our Saint, for so many centuries an emulatress of her virtues.

§ XII. On the Benedictine monastery of Virgins, founded under the name of St. Godeleva at Gistel, afterward translated to Bruges on account of the ravages of the Calvinists, and reformed.

[145] The clause controverted above in paragraph IV, joined in Surius to number XII of the Legend of Drogo, In what year the abbey of the Virgins of St. Godeleva here must be entirely reported again and premised. Thus it is there had: In the year of Christ 1088 the body of St. Godeleva was elevated at Gistel by the Lord Ratbodo, Bishop of Noyon and Tournai, on the third of the Kalends

of August. But the daughter of Bertulph by his second wife, since she was blind from birth, washing her eyes from the water where the holy woman of God was submerged, was illuminated, and there built a monastery of virgins, warring under the rule of St. Benedict, to the honor of God and St. Godeleva: whose snowy gore, which flowed from her mouth and nostrils in the submersion, is preserved in the same monastery, for the perpetual memory of the matter and a sign of the virginity of the same holy woman of God. This addition, whosever it was, since this life of St. Godeleva alone has hitherto been published, must be esteemed to have passed altogether to other writers, and to have furnished a handle, so that even erudite men were snatched aside, to be excused so far as they had that author whom they followed. Among these Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals book 67 page 256 wrote those things which in the paragraph cited above, with other blunders regarding the same, we have refuted, so that they are not here again to be handled, which we suppose there abundantly explained. To this place pertains the regular and most pious life of St. Godeleva in her surviving virgin daughters, continued hitherto according to the norm of the Benedictine institute, which, somewhat agitated and shaken by the Calvinist furies, at last by the care and solicitude of the Bishops, chiefly by the labor of the oft-praised Most Ample man Henri vander Zype, abbot of St. Andrew, was brought back to the old discipline, not without great molestations. Let us premise a few little things pertaining to the first foundation and history.

[146] was founded by the daughter of Bertulf, That that monastery founded at Gistel contributes not a little to the glory of St. Godeleva, no one would dare to deny, since from the history of the Anonymous, well-nigh undoubted at Gistel and through the rest of Flanders, she can in some sort be called the true and sole foundress; both on account of the daughter of her husband by his second wife being healed, blind from birth, and on account of the conversion of Bertulf himself, and his renouncing of the world, whence the goods left could suffice for erecting and sustaining a monastery. Sanderus asserts, page 330, that the abbey of Virgins of the Benedictine institute grew up under the auspices of the Counts and the Bishop, by the wealth of Bertulf the parricide. But a determined year of the foundation neither did he himself find, nor indeed does the Surian Drogo express [it]; nor do I sufficiently understand whence Mabillon dug out that epoch, unless from mere conjecture, that about that time the matter ought to have happened; at least could have: which we too above did not altogether disapprove, yet altogether abstaining from defining a certain year; in this also adverse to Surius, that we esteem the elevation and translation to have been made not in the year 1088, but, from instruments more worthy of faith, in the year 1084. To the matter to be explained in order it would confer immense help, if anyone should from somewhere dig up again in what year Bertulf repented, and either by pilgrimage, or by putting on the monk's habit at St. Winnoc's, thus abdicated his goods, or perhaps was compelled by the command of superiors to abdicate them, so that the daughter as heir might have the means to found the aforesaid monastery; then indeed some diploma, either of the Bishop or of the Count of Flanders, by which they might be understood to have made the power for this. But who would dare to hope for these things today?

[147] it cannot be dug out from certain monuments. The healing of the aforesaid daughter from blindness and its wonderful manner, and finally the prodigious making of the shifts, through the very Saint, by which miracle at last Bertulf was truly converted to penitence, the Anonymous interpolator narrates at length from number 90; concerning which a little below there must be treatment at more length. Here now we are compelled to suppose that at least before the end of the eleventh century the aforesaid monastery of St. Godeleva had some beginning, which, exposed and shaken by various motions of the Flemish wars, without doubt often spoiled, then by the raging heretics destroyed and overthrown, is today plainly destitute of those monuments from which more certain things might be dug out. The place alone survives, like an island, surrounded on every side by a ditch, with few ruins appearing, whence a conjecture can be made of the ancient amplitude. But these things pertain to the other paragraph; where a clearer idea of the whole matter, engraved in brass, will be exhibited. Here would opportunely be inserted some history of the five centuries of the monastery and of the things done in it, but the nuns confess that they are altogether without it, to whom now nothing historical of their affairs at all survives, besides a Belgic register, reporting only, and that dryly and rudely enough, the things which were done after the migration from Gistel to Bruges, thence to Veurne, at last again to Bruges, where after various habitations a fixed domicile was made for them in that place where today they dwell, in the street which is commonly called Bouverystraete, in a most salubrious region of the city, with open sky, in a very ample and commodious house, with pleasure-grounds and gardens extending themselves spaciously enough.

[148] One thing I shall not omit, which I found noted in the old Martyrologies of the monastery, It was reformed in 1481 and subjected to enclosure. that in the fifteenth century some reformation was there made, in the time of the abbess Maria van Gent, who ceased to live in the year 1481, after whom the series of abbesses is so distinguished, that from that reformation they were denominated the second, third, or fourth. I would believe that the monastery was then united to the Bursfeld congregation, whose head is wont to be the abbot at St. Pantaleon of Cologne, and to which several monasteries in Belgium were once subject, thou wilt learn from Miraeus's preface to the Origins of the Benedictine monasteries in Belgium. But the Godelevian nuns were withdrawn from that congregation, by another reformation, which we shall presently briefly touch. What was afterward done at Gistel from that year 1481 up to the year 1577, is no more handed down to memory than the rest, which of the earlier centuries is plainly unknown. I remember to have read somewhere that the Godelevian Virgins, even while they were abroad, were from the year 1484 subjected to religious enclosure: perhaps because they then first accepted the stricter manner of living of the Bursfeld reform. To present memory there cleaves more that fatal iconoclasm of the Calvinists, and the destruction of the whole monastery in the year 1577, in which the Virgins were compelled to betake themselves to Bruges. Hence, as we had begun to say, they passed to Veurne, whence again returning, they fixed their seat at Bruges in the Dunes court, which now other nuns inhabit, who from Spermaille, a monastery distant not far from the city toward the eastern region, at that time, unless I am deceived, had also fled.

[149] The changes of the various habitations I do not here pursue severally; to the house described above, which they had once deserted, The Virgins compelled to flee to Bruges in 1577 they returned by right of postliminy, having suffered very many difficulties, both domestic and external, from which at last the Most Ample [man], so often praised by us, the abbot of St. Andrew Henri vander Zype, extricated them with sedulous and most powerful aid, a new reformation or novitiate being also introduced, admitted by all, a few excepted, who in the old monastery, at the Area of the geese (Gansenplaets), persisting against all things which were done concerning the royal and the Most Illustrious Bishops' consent and authority, protesting, moved all things up and down, lest, torn from the Bursfeld congregation, they be subjected to the Ordinary. They refused to acknowledge the new abbess, claiming for themselves all things sacred and profane, even the bier of the sacred blood, which, only in the last extremities compelled, they suffered to be carried off from them, so that at last only in the year 1642 the sacred pledges came to the new monastery; one or another more pertinacious nun meanwhile, together with her abbess, persevering in the old habitation and institute, which has already been said to have been that of the Bursfeld reform.

[150] That suit the episcopal registers of the church of Bruges, consulted by me, explain at length, from which it appears that to inaugurate that necessary reformation, they were liable to various suits, the Most Illustrious Christophori contributed very much already from the year 1622, the abbot of St. Pantaleon of Cologne, as head of the Bursfeld Congregation, striving against it in vain. Power was made by the Most Illustrious Archbishop of Patras, Apostolic Nuncio at Brussels, that through the Bishop of Bruges those nuns of St. Godeleva be translated, who had embraced the reformation. The Most Illustrious Dionysius testifies, by a letter given 1 June 1624, that he translated them, in which he also declares that the abbess of the old monastery is incapable, etc. There stands there the faculty, given by the King, of erecting and reforming the monastery, on this condition, that it be subject to the Ordinary, the abbot vander Zype chiefly laboring to that end; and thenceforth that new monastery was called the novitiate. That I may not pursue each windings, that matter lasted up to the year 1648, nay as long as survived the already said Anserine nuns, so to be distinguished from the place of their habitation; the Bursfeld monks in some sort fostering those discords. There is with me some writing of that year reporting the summary points of the things which then happened in the abbey of St. Godeleva at Bruges, at that time in which the Reverend Lord Jordan, abbot of Limburg, and commissary of the president of the chapter of the Bursfeld union in Germany, was lately there.

[151] the Bursfeld [monks hindering the new reformation.] It will help to pluck at least a single head from that writing, that some image of those suits may shine forth. On Thursday 16 July of the year mentioned above, 1648, after the celebration of Mass, the abbot Jordan asked to speak to the Lady Abbess, who to that end appeared in the parlor, the Lady prioress and another nun assisting her; before whom the same Lord abbot held very many boastful discourses on the state of the causes, which he said had long ago been moved by the Reverend Lord prelate of St. Andrew, concerning the translation and reformation of the monastery of St. Godeleva, asserting that it had been proceeded in passionately, from many things abusively proposed to the King, and that the Reverend Lord prelate of St. Andrew was thereupon liable in conscience in many things; adding that the same Lord of St. Andrew had seized the occasion of suits of this kind, at that time in which Germany and the Bursfeld Fathers were so involved in the tumults of wars, that they could not conveniently keep watch over the Belgian monasteries, and thus opportunely fishing while the water was troubled; and that nonetheless the Bursfeld Fathers, though they have hitherto proceeded very slowly and tardily, have hard German heads, which finally will not permit these causes so to pass away, even if those nuns of the old convent should die; whom he also highly praised on account of their singular constancy, asserting also that they were martyrs, on account of their continual patience, in so many of their afflictions: insinuating that he had thereupon also sufficient informations, and signally of the bad treatment, and that they were not sufficiently provided with necessaries.

[152] But this [reformation prevailed and persists even today.] Those vain complaints and useless dirges the prudent abbess easily refuted and beat back, egregiously defending the prelate of St. Andrew vander Zype from the imputed calumnies. And indeed so known is the virtue of that man, known his zeal and erudition, that it is in vain to weave his apology here; let Sanderus's Franconatus be seen page 294. I pass over the rest of the abbot Jordan's boasts and threats. His motions and endeavors all at last came to this, that, the supreme Pontiff, the Bishops, the King, and all good men favoring the new monastery, I esteem that nothing further than words was attempted, certainly with the end of the life of those few rebels those long-lasting litigations also had an end, which can confer nothing whatever to the glory of St. Godeleva; but this conduced egregiously to the honor of the Saint and her daughters,

that the veteran nuns too, having of their own accord and willingly embraced the harder and stricter manner of life, persevered most constantly in the purpose they had undertaken, and those who afterward succeeded them, imitating such illustrious examples, fervent even today with the same spirit, religiously follow the footsteps of their most holy Patroness, as it was permitted me not without pleasure both to hear and to behold. Now with how pious a cult they venerate St. Godeleva, how sedulous they are as preservers of the sacred clotted blood and other relics, I can narrate the more safely and with greater faith, because I myself have with my own eyes inspected all things and surveyed them as accurately as I could, as [is] explained in the following paragraph.

§ XIII. On the clotted miraculous blood of St. Godeleva, once honored in the aforesaid old monastery, now at Bruges, and, after various grave molestations, recognized in the year 1643.

Just as they are of a double kind, so to speak, which are cultivated by the faithful with so great religion, The parts of the sacred body being enumerated, the relics of St. Godeleva, so of both, separately, as of diverse classes, for the sake of avoiding confusion, there had to be treatment. Of the sacred bones, both those which at Gistel in the twin reliquaries have veneration, and those which in so various cities, towns, and villages of Flanders, even at Namur, exposed, are there too wont to be frequented with a concourse of pious Catholics; of the sacred bones, I say, we have hitherto almost spoken, although we have not thought that each part, kept both at Gistel, and at Bruges in the monastery and elsewhere, should be more scrupulously enumerated. And those sacred remains of the Saint, which are honorably deposited in the greater shrine, had to be recounted by us no otherwise than in the same manner in which we found them expressed, both in the older diploma of William Bishop of Sarepta, and in the subsequent diplomas of the Most Illustrious Prelates of Bruges Christophori and Van Susteren, above most faithfully reported word for word: for neither could more therefore be discussed; nor did it please to more leisurely seek out the lesser other particles committed to the private piety of the devout clients of St. Godeleva, or honored in some chapels or altars.

[154] And indeed besides those two greater shrines, wont to be exposed yearly in the church of Gistel, also in lesser [ones at Gistel and in the monastery,] I observed there a lesser little vessel, in the form of a cylinder, set as it were on the foot of a chalice, covered with glass, in which particles are enclosed, which are offered to the arriving pilgrims to be kissed. The same is done in the surviving church of the old monastery Pitkens. But in the new monastery of Bruges, three little vessels of this kind the nuns exhibited to me, in each of which relics of both kinds are mixed; so that one part is of bones, the other of clotted blood, of which it here remains for us to treat. The first reliquary and greater than the others is of silver, in one part of which a tooth is exhibited and a little bone of a rib; in the other a part of blood, of the thickness of two fingers. In the second reliquary is set that part of the vertebra extracted from the reliquary of Gistel in the year 1623, of which above the testimony of the Most Ample abbot of St. Andrew Henri vander Zype made mention. Finally a glass cylinder, affixed to a little cushion, represents another little bone, of the size of nearly one larger nut, with a somewhat smaller particle of blood. And these things concerning those more minute parts, both of the sacred body and of the blood, dispersed into various reliquaries of this kind at Gistel, Bruges, and elsewhere through Belgium, as far as Namur.

[155] Now from our Legends we must remember that St. Godeleva, here there is treatment of the sacred blood, strangled by the two servants there more than once named, Lambert and Hacca, that she might be thoroughly suffocated, her head being turned down [and] plunged into the water, from whose mouth and nostrils a huge abundance of blood flowed out, which, mixed with the earth, was turned into white stones of various form and size, some such as Drogo the monk says he saw, which appeared like gems to the eyes of beholders, as thou hast in our genuine legend number [—]: nay even a part of the earth, where she was slain, was turned into white stones, that the Lord might demonstrate her merit, and might make manifest to every faithful [one] the place of her destruction; which so happened. Certain persons, out of devotion to the Saint, took the earth, and carried it home, which afterward they marveled to be turned into gems. I myself, who write these things, coming as a witness, saw the same, and blessed the name of the Lord. Deservedly indeed, that he had manifested the glory of his holy Martyr by so illustrious a miracle. But those gems I would not dare to call a part of the clotted or calcined blood, such as at Bruges the aforesaid Nuns preserve, and which I there both saw with my eyes and handled with my hands, so that from the same earth, sprinkled with the sacred blood, more than one miracle must have proceeded. To this article pertain those larger stones, of which the Surian Drogo seems to speak a little more explicitly.

[156] into white stone turned The Surian, I say, in the controverted clause, above more than once discussed, which, whosever writer it was at last, ought at all events to be esteemed ancient. Thus in that Legend it is had in the last two lines: Whose (St. Godeleva's) snowy gore, which flowed from her mouth and nostrils in the submersion, is preserved in the same monastery, for the perpetual memory of the matter, and a sign of the virginity of the same holy woman of God. The Anonymous interpolator of the life of Drogo indeed varies concerning the white little stones, since the latter most expressly refers them to the place where the Saint consummated her martyrdom by submersion into the waters, but the former to the earth of the sepulchre, which had touched the sacred coffin. But by far the more weighty to us is the authority of Drogo, and that addition, such as it is, to which the immemorial tradition of the people of Gistel, confirmed by legitimate authority, is plainly conformable, concerning the sacred blood of the most holy Martyr turned into those stones, which in the old monastery of Gistel once, now in that of Bruges, are guarded with due honor, most celebrated for well-nigh innumerable miracles and daily benefits. Whether the Anonymous erred, inadvertently transposing the places, or rather the tradition prevailed at Gistel in his time, of the earth of the sepulchre too changed into stones, it matters not to inquire at length; of those stones alone is here the discourse, which for the snowy gore of the most holy Martyr are preserved in the monastery for so many centuries, as such, constantly honored with Catholic cult up to the present day.

[157] Here is the proper place, that of the aforesaid sacred Blood we record this, which sometime emitted blood, which for the confirmation of the whole matter both the greater Belgic Legends adduce; the first indeed among the examples, as it calls them, under the title of the miracles which happened at the Well; but the most recent and a little more correct, chapter 5, page 65; namely a stupendous miracle, whose time is expressly expressed, especially in the greater and older Legend of the year 1619, where the year 1576 is marked. They narrate therefore that that clotted Blood (whether all the stones, or only some one of them, is not more clearly set forth) was once wont to be kept in the very Well of Gistel, and that the same was yearly extracted thence by some priest, washed, and cleansed. Which when that priest did and saw with his own eyes that the water applied to the washing reddened like blood; nevertheless the whiteness of the stones turned the man away from applying faith. Therefore, about to explore the matter, he fixed an iron style into the stone, and lo, straightway a great abundance of blood flowed out thence, as if a vein had been opened or some ox slaughtered. The priest, seized with amazement, ordered the nuns to wipe off the blood and carry it into the sacred piscina, lest perchance traces of the matter should appear to his confusion. Thus almost both editions read, and the whole history is reported in the third class of miracles number 23, as also the following, no less wonderful.

[158] For the Legends subjoin; that when sometime that clotted Blood, and in whose absence the well of Gistel contracted a stench. well cleansed, by the negligence of those to whom it belonged, had not been sent back into the Well early enough, soon the water exhaled so great a stench that it could be tolerated by no one. Which when it had been observed, the blood being without delay restored to its place, all the stench forthwith vanished. Which if they are to be understood to the letter, one must conclude that in those earlier centuries it was set in custom among the nuns of Gistel, not that they should deposit their precious treasure in the temple or sanctuary, but in the very Well, without doubt well shut. How long that was done, I would not divine; this is certain, that from the year 1577, in which the nuns were put to flight thence, not those larger stones, but perhaps some smaller particle, for preserving the purity of the water, remained immersed in the same Well; although not even this seems necessary to assert, the wave being sufficiently consecrated as salutary by the very martyrdom of the Saint, whatever the Belgic Legends in the cited places confirm concerning that wondrous placing of the sacred Blood into the Well, at that time in which the religious virgins inhabited the monastery: but the stench, of which we have treated, must be attributed to some hidden cause, which it is not now permitted to explore.

[159] In whatever sense at last thou take the words of those Legends, The bier of the Blood carried to Bruges, of the present existence of the treasure there is no doubting; it escaped namely the rage of the raging iconoclasts, when in the year next following the narrated prodigy, 1577, the good virgins fleeing to Bruges carried it off with them; then to Veurne, whither they had betaken themselves from Bruges, and at last by right of postliminy to the former seat of Bruges, where after various vicissitudes and changes of habitation, in the Area of the geese, commonly Gansenplaets, they chose a fixed domicile for themselves. That reformation of living being afterward admitted, the Bishops of Bruges and the abbot of St. Andrew vander Zype laboring, of which we lately spoke, when well-nigh all the nuns had proceeded to the present monastery, as to a new novitiate, those few who had remained in the Area of the geese, altogether averse from changing their kind of life, brought the whole matter to discords, tumults, and contentions, by the counsels and incitements, I suppose, of the Bursfeld monks, to whom they had before been united; whence arose those long-lasting and indecent suits, which here to enumerate severally there is neither leisure nor pleasure.

[160] Such was the condition of the Anserine nuns, it furnished a handle for many discords, that, possessing most things, they scarcely suffered anything to be torn from them, reserving to themselves both sacred and profane things, so far that by ecclesiastical and civil, even royal authority they had to be compelled to restore both the account-books and the staff with the rest of the ornaments of the abbess; and at last all the relics, and especially the shrine of the sacred clotted or calcined Blood, for whose recovery, as for their altars, as they say, and hearths, they had to contend sharply for many years: until, a peremptory mandate being obtained from the royal Council of Brussels in the year 1639, through commissaries expressly deputed for this, most things were obtained; but those Anserine religious women could by no means be induced to suffer that sacred shrine of the clotted Blood to be wrested from them, whatever threats or penalties at last were held out. For when, as the cited register of the Godelevian monastery narrates, on 2 September of the already said year 1639, the deputies had come to that old Anserine monastery, not without amazement they detected that the aforesaid

shrine, with a few little silver treasures and ornaments, had been hidden and concealed by the refractory nuns. The rest, which are not here to be explained minutely, I pursue in a compendium.

[161] at last obtained by the reformed [nuns in 1642.] Since the aforesaid Anserine nuns suffered themselves to be moved neither by friendly exhortations, nor by severe admonitions, nor at last by the prayers and authority of the nobles, to reveal the hidden things and yield to the new monastery, recourse had again to be had to the court, whence, reiterated mandates being sent to the Reverend Lords Vicars of the vacant bishopric, they, on 15 October of the year 1640, fortified with the secular arm, approached the obstinate nuns with fresh admonitions and persuasions, but finding them stubborn in their purposes, judged that they must be sequestered into various monasteries; and, workmen and masons being applied, they ordered each corner of the house to be searched through, if in any way the desired chest could be brought out from somewhere: but with vain effort, since it had been carried off elsewhere. At last, other remedies being applied in vain, it came to censures, by which moved, they revealed the place of concealment, and the sacred treasure came into the hands of the vicars on 31 July 1641. Then finally on 29 April of the year 1642, by royal command, the Most Illustrious Nicholas de Haudion, Bishop of Bruges, through the Reverend Lord Prior at St. Andrew, accompanied by two Canons, took care that the most-desired shrine be carried to the new monastery, where with auspicious acclamations and immense joy of the good nuns and incredible veneration it was received. Moreover in the next following year, on 23 July, the same Most Illustrious de Haudion instituted a solemn visitation, whose authentic testimony I exhibit, taken from the very registers of the bishopric.

[162] Nicholas de Haudion, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See Bishop of Bruges, And in the following year 1643 perpetual and hereditary Chancellor of Flanders, to all who shall see these letters greeting in the Lord. A petition exhibited to us on the part of the Lady Abbess, and of the nuns of the new monastery of St. Godeleva, of the Order of St. Benedict, once outside, but now within the city of Bruges, contained how in the Council of his Catholic Majesty, a suit pending between the supplicants on the one, and the sisters Anna Godeleva Massur, and Anna Sproncholf professed religious of the old monastery of the aforesaid St. Godeleva on the other parts: certain notable relics of the same St. Godeleva among others, on the 6th day of August of the year 1641, at the instance of the said sisters Anna Godeleva Massur and Anna Sproncholf, were sequestered into the hands of the Reverend Lords Vicars of the then vacant episcopal see, and reposited in a certain cupboard, situated in the greater sacristy of St. Charles Borromeo, of the Cathedral church, and there under the seal of the same Lords Vicars were kept up to the 29th day of April last elapsed.

[163] On which we, wishing to commit to execution the royal letters given at Brussels on the fourth of the same month of April, by the Most Illustrious Bishop Haudion signed de Gottignies and sealed with the wonted seal of the said Royal Majesty, the aforementioned relics enclosed in a square wooden bier, painted and gilded on the outside, of a height of about two feet, duly visited by us, in the presence of very many, both Ecclesiastics and seculars, and shut under our seal, impressed on red wax, we took care to restore to the said Lady Abbess and nuns of the new monastery, now dwelling in the new house of the same monastery, situated in the street called of Bouverystrate, with other little relics, jewels, ornaments, and other things, sequestered for the part of the aforesaid two nuns, into the hands of the aforesaid Lords Vicars thus far; as also it is established to us that they were restored, and thenceforth in the same bier, in the church of the same monastery, were kept.

[164] But since, as the same petition subjoined, unsealed, the nuns of the said new monastery, out of the piety and ardent devotion with which they are borne toward the said St. Godeleva, greatly desired that for some brief time the said bier be opened by us, and the relics enclosed within be shown to them with due veneration; we, considering that a supplication of this kind is just and consonant with reason, came to the said church of the new monastery of the same St. Godeleva, and there, the lights being lit, with due reverence (as is the custom) in the presence of the very Reverend Lord Jacobus de Bernencourt, Provost of the collegiate church of Bl. Mary of Bruges, the Reverend Father Guardian of the Capuchin convent of Bruges, our Secretary and Chaplain, as also of very many bystanders, the said bier, the seals first being drawn off, which (as is aforesaid) were impressed above, we opened; and in the same we found the said relics of St. Godeleva, in order as follows.

[165] First a great part of the (as is reported) clotted blood of the same St. Godeleva, visited of an almost quadrangular form, marked on each part with many little pits * and holes, dense to the breadth of three fingers, of a white color, and almost like lime. Likewise another part large enough, but notably smaller than the former, almost round, of nearly the same density. Likewise four other smaller parts, uniformly misshapen, and also a smallest part, and some minute particles, like peas, all which parts were separately wrapped in white linens, and the said greater parts moreover in red byssus, made in the manner of a purse.

[166] Which wrappings being partly loosed and opened, and accurately recognized. all the aforesaid relics, to the oft-said nuns, gathered in the hanging choir of the aforementioned church, and to the other bystanders, we showed with the veneration which is premised, and then the same, again wrapped in the aforesaid linens, we reposited in the aforesaid bier with the present letters, and the same bier, duly closed, we shut with our aforesaid seal, impressed above on red wax in the four corners, and moreover we have deemed it right to grant, and consent by the present letters, that the same be reposited and placed in a wooden chest, adorned for this at the Gospel side of the altar of the aforesaid church, and honored with due cult by the faithful of Christ. Given at Bruges in our episcopal palace, under our seal and the signature of our Secretary, on the 24th day of July of the year 1643. And in the fold was had: By mandate of the very Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord aforesaid. And it was signed Vander Zype Secretary 1643; and appending was the seal of the aforesaid Most Illustrious Bishop on a red wafer.

* Is it not rather "with little ditches"?

§ XIV. On the new recognition of the sacred Blood, made by the present Most Illustrious Bishop in 1719; on the parts of the same Blood, exposed to veneration elsewhere, and on the confraternities instituted in honor of the Saint.

In the last recognition of the year 1719 Access to that sacred Treasure lay open to me on 7 July of the aforesaid year 1719, by the authority of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Henri Joseph van Susteren, present Bishop of Bruges, who in the lesser or inner shrine, which now is wont to be enclosed in a far greater [one], found all things to agree with those which in the premised diploma the Most Illustrious his predecessor Nicholas Haudion asserted, that only being excepted which in the register of the monastery, article 43, is most expressly expressed, excepted, I say, that lesser part, which by the same Bishop was sent to the nuns of Namur in the year 1644, on 3 May, as the episcopal register of that time reports in these words: The Most Reverend Bishop of Bruges gave as a gift to a certain monastery of nuns, of the Order of St. Benedict, in the city of Namur, a part of the clotted blood, with an adjoined decree of letters in form, with relics, enclosed within a small box, under the seal of the same Most Reverend Bishop. But the aforesaid register of the monastery notes that, in a visitation to be sometime made, the number of the particles will be found to be diminished, namely that which, received by the Most Illustrious Bishop from the shrine, was transmitted to the nuns of Namur. But that this is most true, we experienced, since instead of four, only three smaller parts, joined to the two greater masses, were found in that very shrine.

[168] All are wrapped in a clean linen, which in various parts was fortified with the seal of the Most Illustrious Bishop, then shut in a bag, and thus set in the lesser shrine, all were found to agree with the former [visitation of the year 1643.] which they wholly fill, although it seems extended to nearly two feet, and about as many high, shut also in its places with the episcopal seal. It is wholly of wood, here and there somewhat gilded; it is closed above with a roof, so that it seems to represent the form of a little house. The whole thing, sufficiently described here, I have not deemed it worth the labor to set before the eyes. The larger reliquary, of a far greater mass, is indeed wooden itself too, but wholly silvered and in various parts gilded, which for twenty-four days, from 6 to 30 July, just as the solemnity of Gistel lasts, is exposed in the very temple of the monastery to the piety and veneration of the flowing-together people; that lesser one namely being enclosed in this greater, so that only the larger machine is beheld. I have already said that many small particles of the same clotted blood are divided into various lesser reliquaries there, with parts of the sacred bones; of which two are carried to Pitkens, or the old monastery of Gistel, that there too relics may be offered to the people to be kissed. Another particle is wont to be plunged into water, about to impart to it a disease-driving virtue, as will become manifest when we shall have come to the miracles, which are said to be there wrought in great number, although I have found none supported or approved by sufficiently legitimate authority, so that consequently they rest on the faith of good men alone, which are reported at the foot of the Legends, from the monuments of the monastery. Behold now the delineation of that greater reliquary.

[169] Parts of the aforesaid blood, exposed elsewhere than at Gistel and Bruges to the veneration of the faithful, Particles of the sacred blood at Nieuwpoort and Ghent. we do not know, save at Nieuwpoort, where it existed in the year 1492, the Cleric of Gistel testifies, among the miracles subjoined below to the Acts, number 11. There are likewise some at Namur, as we have already intimated in a word, and at Ghent in the small Beguinage, of which we have treated at length in paragraph XI. By what reasoning chiefly, in what precise year, the precious remains came to those Beguine virgins, I know not whether anyone today could explain with certainty enough. I supposed there that either from him who had first received them at Gistel from the abbess, or from some one of his heirs, such as perhaps some daughter could have been, inscribed in the aforesaid congregation of the Beguines, they were obtained, and there soon honored with religious cult; which, the heretics obtaining power at Ghent, ceased for some time, at last the Catholic affairs again flourishing, augmented by the piety and confidence of the faithful, such as we have described it there. The instrument of the first donation, made by Godeleva Payers, abbess of Gistel, to that Louis Boonis in the year 1548, I reported in that place, whence it could not conveniently be torn away. Here again I shall note that some particle of the same Ghent blood was likewise given as a gift by the Reverend Lord Rochus de Scheemaecker, then pastor of that Beguinage, when from Sleidinge the other relics were received, as a return-gift to the Reverend Lord Franciscus Staes, which therefore is there also cultivated even today, as was said in the cited paragraph XI.

[170] The same cult among the nuns of Namur, Of the Namur blood we have already reported the testimony from the episcopal register of Bruges. I have before my eyes the very autograph letter of sister Thecla de Spontin, abbess of the monastery of the Peace of Our Lady (la paix nostre Dame) at Namur, given 26 August 1645, by which she signifies to the Most Illustrious Bishop of Bruges, the oft-said Nicholas de Haudion, that the Most Illustrious

Bishop of Namur (who at that time was Engelbert des Bois) had long ago received the sacred relics, to be opened before the Vicariate, and soon to be honorably and solemnly deposited in the church. The rest of the letter consists in profuse thanksgivings, in her name and that of her daughters, for so signal a gift, a future immortal monument of the benevolence of that Most Illustrious Bishop toward her monastery. The monastery of the Peace of Namur was not at that time very old, inasmuch as the author of the Sanctuary of Namur asserts that it first laid its foundations in the year 1613. That it follows the stricter norm of the life of St. Benedict, he there testifies: but that the Virgins procured the foundation, the buildings promoted by the alms of private persons; that religious discipline flourishes and thrives there, etc. And that it was done for this reason, the Godelevian nuns narrated, that toward them the first reformatresses of the monastery of Bruges were then more inclined, because those nuns of Namur professed the same institute of life which they themselves had not long before embraced.

[171] But just as above the sacred blood, honored at Ghent in the lesser Beguinage, where also a joint of a finger. could not conveniently be separated from the other relics of the sacred body, so also in this place both sacred remains must be joined, which at Namur in the aforesaid monastery of the Peace are kept. Thus consigned to writing in its record the present abbess M. A. Josepha de Lambellion most lately testified, in a writing sent to me by the Rector of our college there the Reverend Father Le Vaillant. The words of the instrument, probably left by the Thecla de Spontin said above, are: In the year 1646 by the gift of the same Most Illustrious Bishop of Bruges we also received a joint of a finger of the aforesaid St. Godeleva, with the due attestations in which it was wrapped. Moreover those relics too the Most Illustrious our Bishop Engelbert des Bois approved. But they, set in an elegant little chest, by the same Bishop, in a solemn procession, were carried from the episcopal palace to the chapel of our monastery, and there hitherto exposed to the veneration of all. She subjoins that St. Godeleva at Namur is invoked by the faithful chiefly for obtaining concord between spouses, and for driving off and averting pains of the throat. On her very feast day a solemn Mass is sung, without further cult, on account of the concurrence on that day of the Octave of the Apostles. To these testimonies was joined a French schedule printed in the year 1646, by which a brief compendium of the life of St. Godeleva was set forth to the people of Namur. Here I add in few words that Rayssius taught me in the Sacred Treasury page 201, that in the nunnery of Doorzele of the Cistercian Virgins at Ghent there is kept in a phial something of the blood of St. Godeleva: and likewise page 463 in the collegiate church of St. Saviour at Bruges.

[172] And let these things concerning the particles of the sacred Blood, carried elsewhere and honored, Confraternities in honor of St. Godeleva, especially at Gistel be said enough; this one thing almost remains regarding the glory of St. Godeleva, that we survey with pious curiosity the ruins of the old monastery of Gistel, and the monuments which there survive in honor of the Saint, which will be the matter of the next paragraph, to which before we pass, a few other arguments of the veneration of devout clients toward the Saint must be gathered, the more illustrious because they are demonstrated by the common consent of several. I mean the confraternities or sodalities, breathing this one thing, that they not only keep the annual festivity, but by a perpetual cult in some sort, excited by mutual stimuli, bind themselves more closely to St. Godeleva, propose her virtues to themselves for imitation, and at last devote themselves wholly to her singular patronage. In this the people of Gistel without doubt claim the first place for themselves, from immemorial time, and no less at this time eminent cultivators of their Patroness, and who seem to hold this as proper to themselves, that everyone is busy to render the most manifest indications of his mind most devoted to the Saint, and thus in emulation to give their names to the confraternity, and blush not at all to profess themselves foster-children of the Saint. To their care is committed the chapel of the Saint, or nave of the temple, described by us above, they collect the alms; nay even to their deputies for this, one of the three keys of the repository of the sacred body committed, we have also said above.

[173] and at Bruges, where two [confraternities of the Porters;] Some citizens of Bruges were emulators, whose market porters or carriers long ago instituted a congregation in the church of St. Saviour, as I have ascertained, from a certain faculty, granted to them in the episcopal registers, of selling some house, proper to their sodality, and rightly expending the money coming thence: but these things were done in the year 1584; so that it was easy for me to conjecture that the aforesaid congregation was instituted long before that year. And this confraternity testifies that it has not from its primeval zeal deviated up to today; consisting nevertheless of those market porters alone, and having a chapel or altar proper to itself, in the circuit and at the extremity of the aforesaid church of St. Saviour: long ago, I suppose, confirmed at Rome, but augmented with new graces by Alexander VII in the year 1662, on 5 July. From the Bull, presently to be subjoined, thou wilt gather what was granted to them; with this disparity meanwhile, that the favors of Innocent X, indulged to the confraternity of the Godelevian monastery, are not restricted to men of one special art, but to all the faithful of both sexes who shall have aggregated themselves to it; but there at St. Saviour all things are restricted to those porters alone, and market ones indeed. But these honor the sacred relics of their patroness with such cult, that on the festal light of St. Godeleva they take care that a solemn Mass be celebrated; on the morrow, and on other set days, the highest account is had of the deceased of the confraternity: both in assisting at the funerals, and in procuring sacrifices for their eternal rest, as I perceived from an instrument transmitted to me at Bruges.

[174] but the chief [confraternities in the very monastery of the Saint,] In the episcopal registers cited above I had learned that the same porters, or certainly other people of Bruges, in the year 1620 had a chapel, or better shouldst thou say, an altar of St. Godeleva in the church, likewise collegiate, of the Bl. Virgin Mary under the odeum; whence a suspicion arose in me, either that those market porters had migrated thither, or that by those words another sodality of St. Godeleva than the former was indicated. The matter the so-often-praised renowned Wale explained to me, when he more accurately distinguished the porters of the bridge of St. Mary (Mariebrugghe) from those market ones, so that the Marian porters in the church of the Virgin, the market ones in the church of St. Saviour, demonstrate the annual and constant arguments of their most inclined will and piety toward St. Godeleva, with an egregious and plainly singular emulation, and such as thou wouldst scarcely find elsewhere. But whatever of these there be; the cult of our Saint in the sacred edifice of the monastery of the nuns increasing more and more daily, thither chiefly were the zeals of the earlier clients turned; and thus a congregation or confraternity newly instituted there, which in the year 1649 established by pontifical authority, without doubt far excelled the earlier ones: and, animated by its first fervor even today, it persists flourishing and vigorous, as is most known to the whole city of Bruges. It will not be beside the purpose to learn the pontifical graces and favors, with which the confrères and consœurs are abundantly enriched, from the very diploma. Thus there speaks the supreme Pontiff:

[175] which in the year 1649 Innocent Pope X. For the perpetual memory of the matter. Since, as we have received, in the church of the monastery of the nuns of St. Godeleva, of the city of Bruges, one pious and devout confraternity of the faithful of Christ of both sexes, under the invocation of the same St. Godeleva, yet not for men of one special art, exists canonically instituted, whose confrères and consœurs are wont to exercise very many works of piety and charity; We, that the aforesaid confraternity may daily receive greater increases, trusting in the mercy of Almighty God and the authority of his Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, to all the faithful of Christ of both sexes, who shall hereafter enter the said confraternity, on the first day of their entrance, if truly penitent and confessed, they shall have received the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, we grant a plenary indulgence, and also to them, and to those to be inscribed in time, as well as to those already inscribed in the said confraternity as confrères and consœurs, in the article of the death of any of them, if truly penitent and confessed, and refreshed by sacred communion, or in so far as they cannot do this, at least contrite, they shall have invoked the name of Jesus with the mouth, if they can, if not with a devout heart, also a plenary indulgence.

[176] And to the same confrères and consœurs now and existing in time, and truly penitent and confessed, by Innocent Pope X and refreshed by the same sacred communion, who shall devoutly visit the church or chapel or oratory of the aforesaid confraternity, on the feast day of the same St. Godeleva, from first Vespers up to the setting of the sun of a feast of this kind, each year, and there for the concord of Christian princes, the extirpation of heresies, and the exaltation of holy Mother Church, shall have poured forth pious prayers to God, we likewise mercifully grant in the Lord a plenary indulgence and remission of all their sins.

[177] Moreover to the said confrères and consœurs, even truly penitent and confessed and refreshed by sacred Communion, it was approved, visiting the said church or chapel or oratory, on four other festive or holy days of the year, to be chosen once only by the confrères of the said confraternity and approved by the Ordinary, as is premised, and there praying, on whatever day of the aforesaid they shall have done this, seven years and as many quarantines; but as often as they shall have been present at Masses and other divine offices to be celebrated and recited in time in the said church or chapel or oratory, or at the public and private congregations of the same confraternity, to be held wheresoever, or shall have received the poor into hospitality, or shall have composed peace between enemies, or caused or procured [it] to be composed.

[178] As also those who shall have accompanied to burial the bodies of the deceased, both of the confrères and consœurs of the said confraternity, many graces and favors being granted and of others, or any processions to be made by license of the Ordinary, and the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, both in processions, and when it is carried to the sick or elsewhere wheresoever and whensoever, shall have accompanied; or if hindered, the sign of the bell being given for this, shall have said once the Lord's Prayer and the angelic salutation, or also five times the aforesaid prayer and salutation, for the souls of the deceased confrères and consœurs aforesaid, shall have recited, or shall have brought back some sinner to the way of salvation, and the ignorant, the precepts of God, and those things which pertain to salvation, shall have taught, or shall have exercised any work of piety or charity, as often for any of the aforesaid works sixty days, of the penances enjoined on them or otherwise in any way due, in the wonted form of the Church we relax, the present letters to be valid in perpetual future times.

[179] to the sodalities of both sexes. But we will, that if otherwise to the said confrères and consœurs, performing the premises, any other indulgence perpetually or for a time not yet elapsed to endure, shall have been granted, the present letters be null; and that, if the said confraternity be already aggregated to some archconfraternity, or hereafter be aggregated, or by any other reason be united, or in any way be instituted, the earlier or any other Apostolic letters shall by no means avail them, but from that time by that very fact be altogether null. Given at Rome at St. Mary Major, under the ring of the fisherman, on the 30th day of

April 1649, in the fifth year of our pontificate. Subsigned M. A. Maraldus, and below. It pleases the very illustrious and Most Reverend Lord, etc., to be published. By mandate, etc., subsigns J. B. Vanden Zype Secretary: on 6 June. There are noted in the copy the four days of Indulgences designated, at the request of the Godelevian abbess: namely the translation of St. Benedict, the translation of St. Godeleva, the Octave of St. Godeleva, and the feast day of St. Scholastica. At Bruges 15 June 1649; and signed as above.

§ XV. On the celebrated well, frequented at Gistel with an incredible concourse of people, especially from 6 July to 30 of the same month, and on the monuments which there survive today.

The chief cult of the Saint in the old monastery of Gistel, Among the various places already enumerated, celebrated for the cult of St. Godeleva, the palm is altogether snatched from the rest by the village named from the name of the very Saint, as Sanderus says in the Franconatus page 329, situated at nearly the middle stone from Gistel … having its name from the Saint … (commonly called Pitkens) from the monastery of Virgins dedicated to her holy name; which now, on account of the motions of the times, translated into the city of Bruges, under the rule of St. Benedict, flourishes in the glory of the stricter observance; that matter being procured chiefly by the religious man Henri vander Zype, abbot of St. Andrew near Bruges of the same order: which it does not repent [me] to have said several times. Most renowned in the aforesaid village is the well, once enclosed within the very inner circuit of the monastery of Gistel, whose water, by the shed blood of St. Godeleva, was rendered salutary for driving off various sicknesses, by the testimony of Drogo himself it is undoubted. Thus he himself speaks in our edition number 24: Another element too Almighty God converted to the glory of his honor, that he might make public what and how great was the merit of the woman there submerged: for whosoever, pressed by the discomfort of fever, whosoever by the sufferings of other infirmities, coming there, drank that water, rejoiced that they had straightway received the desired health, by her merits.

[181] where the well [is renowned for many miracles;] But the Anonymous, interpolator of Drogo, at number 91 narrates a signal miracle, which was wrought in Bertulf's daughter, afterward foundress of the monastery, by the merits of the Saint, when she, first admonished by a revelation, her unbelieving parents in vain resisting, having got the opportunity, when on a certain day through her young companions she had by earnest prayer asked to be led to this well, thrice washing the little sockets of her eyes, deprived of light from birth, with sincere faith, pure devotion, and great confidence, according to the promise of the holy Virgin and Martyr, divinely illustrated, obtained the clearest light of seeing. There followed afterward well-nigh innumerable miracles of that kind, which, if all had been a little more accurately handed down to memory, would without doubt fill a signal volume: those which have been suggested to us, or we have happily found elsewhere, we shall record in their place; here it seems altogether worth the labor to represent a sufficiently accurate delineation of the very surviving part of the monastery of Gistel, or of the village of St. Godeleva, and the site both of the temple and of the well, and of the neighboring famous hill and the other adjacent monuments pertaining to St. Godeleva, taken from the very praised illustrator of Flanders Sanderus.

[182] That that present well was not then a well, which on 5 July 1719 the Most Illustrious [Bishop visited.] when the Saint was immersed in it, is certain enough, the people of Gistel themselves by no means gainsaying: I would admit a lake, or a ditch or small pond, destined at that time for refreshing and watering horses and other beasts of burden; whose water when afterward the Nuns had experienced to be so salubrious, they ordered a well to be dug out, which up to today, girded round in a square by its walls, as the proposed delineation exhibits under the letter A, was first in the very cloister of the Nuns, now also well guarded, inasmuch as its access lies open only through the gate under the letter B, well closed with a door and lock, which is chiefly opened then, when the solemnity of twenty-four days is performed in the month of July each year, on other days only then, I suppose, when the desire of the pilgrims flowing in must be satisfied, as he willingly did to the favor of the Most Illustrious Bishop of Bruges, who had come thither from Gistel on foot on 5 July 1719, he to whom the care of the well is committed, offering the salubrious drink both to the Most Illustrious Bishop himself and to the whole company, and narrating many things of it, which we have thought must be taken a little more safely from more certain monuments.

[183] The place is next to the temple, as from the letter A set in the already said delineation thou most clearly perceivest. Its wonderful overflowing in the year 1500. Of the salutary well itself the greater Belgic Legend records things wonderful enough. I exhibit a specimen, which is said to have happened in the year 1500, namely then when there was treatment of restoring the same well, which without doubt was collapsing; on the feast of St. Calixtus, or 14 October: namely that so huge an abundance of water then suddenly overflowed, that the abbess, after the reformation, as they themselves spoke, the second, was well-nigh oppressed by the subsiding force of the waters in the circuit of the monastery, and the other side of the temple almost fell by the same calamity. All which and other perils St. Godeleva without doubt averted, some mason of Bruges being perhaps sent in time, who had opportunely come to visit the place of the martyrdom of the Saint, that he might free the good nuns, struck and consternated by so unexpected an event, from evident peril. This matter, next to a prodigy, no one would deny: the well from that time restored entire, remained most celebrated through all Flanders and the neighboring regions to this day, and its water is not only drunk in the place by the pilgrims flowing together, but in whole vats, or other vessels, to places many miles distant thence, as a present both remedy and amulet against various diseases, is wont to be constantly carried, we received on the spot as present witnesses.

[185] Destroyed with the monastery, it was afterward restored. That the well, widely known in those regions, suffered no ruin in the fatal plundering of all things sacred and most sacred by the heretic ravagers, I would not indeed easily persuade myself: for since both the temple and the monastery were utterly destroyed and overthrown, who would believe that the furious hands of the iconoclasts spared so illustrious a monument, already through so many centuries, of the Godelevian sanctity, against which chiefly their unbridled rage was wont to riot and rave. The lesser Belgic Legend hands down, page 64 and 65, that some religious virgin of Bruges, of the Order of the Carmelites, was wont yearly to run to that well of Gistel, and there found a most present remedy for her ill: which the tax-collector of the place at that time observing, or the guardian of the goods pilfered, constituted by the heretics, and himself a non-Catholic, promised that he would restore the aforesaid well to its pristine state, and that at his own expense, if ever the Catholic affairs should there prevail. But the year 1572 is noted, so that it can easily be conjectured that violent hands were laid on the very well, at least that it suffered no small ruin, before the monastery itself was plainly overthrown, which that it happened about five years after, all the monuments which survive hand down.

[185] Of the well-nigh infinite multitude of the faithful running each year to those salutary waters, A part of the temple was restored in 1615, we have not by the way spoken above; the miracles regarding the same we shall report in their place; now other things remain to be narrated, which we ourselves too have there contemplated with our own eyes, when we shall have premised that the ruins of the temple still surviving were, first in the year 1615, for some part erected into their present form, just as the episcopal registers of that year hand down: 27 February the Most Reverend Lord gave leave to the abbess of St. Godeleva of going to Gistel for twelve or fourteen days, in which she might choose the part of the temple, destroyed by these tumults, to be rebuilt. There stands therefore today a part of the ancient temple, about the middle, not inelegantly restored nor ungracefully adorned, yet narrower than to be able sometimes to hold the supplicating foster-children, flowing together in emulation from every quarter to the annual festivity; so great is, that I may say it again, especially at that time, the throng of men of every sex and age coming to that sanctuary from all Flanders. But here not the solemnity but the temple itself is to be described in few words.

[186] In the chief altar, neat enough, the same is represented which [is] in the temple of Gistel; adorned elegantly enough even today. namely the marriage of St. Godeleva with Bertulf, or their joining before the parish priest and the friends standing by. Everywhere occur images both painted and sculptured of the strangulation, and of the submersion into the water of the holy Martyr. I saw hung up a tapestry almost square of about three ells, in whose several corners these several words are embroidered. Virgin, married, widowed, martyred, such as I remember to have seen also in the very monastery of Bruges. The middle of the tapestry is occupied by the likewise embroidered effigy of the very St. Godeleva, with the year 1577 inscribed below, that very year namely in which the Nuns were compelled to flee thence, as has been abundantly said above. Not less there than at Gistel and Bruges is the religion, in admitting promiscuously all to the sacred kiss of the relics. In whatever word thou turn thyself, all the monuments which are anywhere beheld breathe a most inclined piety toward St. Godeleva. That building which at the entrance of the gate on the right thou beholdest, greater, under the letter C, this from 6 July to 30 two Reverend Capuchin Fathers inhabit, sent thither from Ostend as a mission for the service of the flowing-together people, which that it runs together there most numerous, has already been more than once inculcated.

[187] Near, nay contiguous to that ruined monastery is a hill elegant enough under the letter D, Another chapel of the Saint on the neighboring hill, planted with tall trees, on whose top a chapel is built and restored, where both the holy sacrifice of Mass, and other works of piety are exercised, adorned with those images and pictures, which we have said recur everywhere elsewhere, of the martyrdom of St. Godeleva. The inhabitants record, and there is there a received and constant tradition, that in that place St. Godeleva was deputed, by the command of her impious husband Bertulf, to keep off crows and other birds from the crops, which is wont to be the vilest office of little servants. Of that guarding of the crops and the signal miracle, by which the Saint drove all those birds by divine nod into a neighboring barn, until she had been present at the sacrifice of Mass, Drogo nowhere makes mention; but the whole matter the Anonymous interpolator describes fully enough in chapter 5 from number 34, whence it passed into the Belgic legend and into perpetual memory among the people of Gistel: whether it happened most plainly in that place where today the chapel stands, or in another neighboring [one], whence at least a handle was seized, of erecting such a monument in memory of so singular a miracle. I would believe the matter undoubted, if it were supported by the authority of Drogo; although I would by no means presume to render it doubtful, since very many deeds of the Saint could have been passed over by Drogo, which subsequently gathered, gave to the Anonymous matter for amplifying the life; which that it happened to several Saints is not most explored to anyone in the least skilled in these matters.

[188] wont to be visited with equal celebrity. That the veneration of St. Godeleva on that hill was ancient and immemorial equally as in the monastery itself, the equal antiquity of all the monuments demonstrates, the equal solicitude in both places of honoring the Saint and promoting her cult. In the episcopal registers cited above

of the bishopric of Bruges, in the time of the second Bishop Remigius Druitius, I find that indulgences of 40 days were granted by him on the fifth of the Ides of July 1571, to all who shall have visited the chapel constructed on the hill next to the monastery of St. Godeleva of the Order of St. Benedict under the parish of Gistel, once of the diocese of Tournai, now of Bruges, or the well of St. Godeleva within the enclosures of the monastery, in whose well-water a part of the blood of the same Martyr is preserved, and also the image of the said Martyr, placed in the circuit of the same monastery. That image I esteem was destroyed with the whole monastery by the hands of the Calvinist iconoclasts; the rest persevere, so far as I have above explained, and with the same indulgences, as also the sacristies of the church of Gistel and of the monastery of Bruges, are up to now wont to be endowed by the Most Illustrious Bishops, besides other plenary indulgences, obtained from about the middle of the last century, which from that time came from Rome, as I detected from the aforesaid registers in more than one place. So many treasures of heavenly goods marvelously contributed to augmenting the cult of St. Godeleva, and to procuring greater glory of God and the salvation of souls, and even today do not cease to contribute.

[189] What tradition bears concerning another high monument. There remains there a last monument under the letter E, exhibited to us as we went from Gistel to the monastery Pitkens. The monastery already described is distant from the town half a league to the west; but when thou shalt have accomplished beyond the middle of the way, there occurs a small chapel, not much adorned, which they said was founded in memory of another miracle, of which likewise the interpolator Anonymous alone makes mention, in chapter 9 from number 92, where he narrates that a servant sent from Gistel, from the castle of Bertulf, to make the shifts, found there a Lady of venerable majesty under a tree … who, soothing the servant with a bland address, asked for the cloth, and sewed the linen garments or the shifts themselves; which Bertulf recognizing, was at last by that prodigy of the divine benignity converted to sincere penitence. And this monument indeed and the cause of its being built plainly agrees with the history of the Anonymous. Of the neighboring well there, whose water too they would have to be salubrious and fit for driving off diseases, I have hitherto found nothing written. Popular tradition bears that there was immersed there by the Saint the thimble or finger-guard, with which she had made the aforesaid shifts, which whether it can be sufficiently persuaded to anyone, I would rather leave to the judgment of others than my own: nor would I easily believe that the people run together there to draw water, where they have so near the well itself, which all experience to be salutary.

[190] Here let there be an end of the things which, with what diligence we could, Transition to the things which are narrated of the Saint's husband. several friends conferring their contribution, we have been able to gather concerning the Acts of St. Godeleva and their writers, the cult, the ecclesiastical offices, the relics and the other monuments regarding her unceasing glory, so that now we should have to proceed to the lives themselves, unless another matter, not altogether unconnected with the earlier ones, remained, concerning the penitence and happy end of Bertulf, husband of St. Godeleva, which that it must be reckoned among the chief and most illustrious miracles of the Saint, no one would doubt. The remaining miracles, distributed into their classes, we shall subjoin to the lives, but this, on account of various appendages, to be explained a little more fully, we have preferred to premise here, on the faith of the instruments, which, that they may not be rejected, we would certainly wish to rest on greater authority, as thou wilt presently understand. Nor indeed is there another more opportune place, than that, the endowments, merits, and triumphs of the most illustrious Martyr being enumerated, the glorious penitence of her husband, however her parricide, should be subjoined, as it were the chief prey, snatched from Orcus by her prayers, in which he deigned to manifest his omnipotence, who wills not the death of a sinner, but that he be converted and live eternally, which of Bertulf the monuments, presently to be produced in order, bid us hope.

§ XVI. On the chief miracle of St. Godeleva, in the conversion of her husband Bertulf, afterward a monk at St. Winnoc's of Bergues, and there, after a hard penitence, piously deceased.

That very many miracles were wrought by the merits of St. Godeleva in so many centuries now elapsed, both the surviving notices and perpetual tradition testify, The greatest miracle the conversion of Bertulf, of which if I should wish to describe the number, says the Anonymous at number 83, this our tract, made a tedium to readers, would exceed the measure of the promised narration. A vain evasion or mere scruple; he had already exceeded the measure, nor would the miracles have been a tedium, which indeed he could have gathered more, which had happened in two whole centuries, and without doubt in recent memory; since, doing something else, he sticks in those alone which had been commemorated by Drogo; so that it easily appears that from that time the people of Gistel were more negligent in consigning to posterity so many illustrious trophies of their holy Patroness. To the Drogonian miracles the Anonymous added that chief miracle, of which we here intend to treat, wrought in the conversion of the perfidious and cruel Bertulf, whose barbarous mind the merits of his most blessed spouse softened, so that at last he was brought to good fruit, just as Malbrancus embraced [it] in an elogium neat enough, which below we shall transcribe from him. And this alone is what we said we had undertaken here to treat briefly, being about at the foot of the lives to reduce into various classes the miracles or benefits of various kinds, which the printed lives, of whatever authority they be, have suggested to us: then indeed other handfuls from the Manuscript of the Cleric of Gistel of the year 1506, and from more recent instruments, which have never hitherto been printed. Here we shall pursue the proposed argument concerning Bertulf.

[192] It will seem wonderful indeed to many, and to us above it seemed [so], that Drogo, the monk of St. Andrew, why Drogo did not speak of it. whom we have long ago shown to have protracted his life beyond the year 1118, made not even a word concerning the second marriage of Bertulf, the blind offspring thence taken, the elevation of St. Godeleva, and the ensuing miracles, of the conversion of Bertulf himself or the foundation of the monastery; while in narrating these the Anonymous is wholly engaged, later than Drogo by two whole centuries. But indeed we have touched this scruple too above, from the preface of Drogo, not idly pointing out that he so restricted the argument of his whole writing, that he touched nothing at all, save those heads alone which he had undertaken to exhibit to his Bishop: namely the stock, life, persecutions, and martyrdom of St. Godeleva; pursuing those four parts alone in some sort scrupulously, neglecting even the very elevation, or the canonization of that time, at which nevertheless he most probably had been present: for I am vehemently deceived, unless Drogo the deacon, who is reckoned among the witnesses of the first elevation at number 48, be the very same, then still younger, who afterward put together the life of St. Godeleva. Nothing therefore ought here to hinder the silence of Drogo, but that we give faith to the Anonymous writer and the other monuments, both of Gistel and of Bergues; bearing testimony of the sincere repentance of Bertulf, and the life religiously passed at St. Winnoc's.

[193] The difficult epoch of Bertulf's penitence, What the Anonymous says at number 95, that Bertulf, his whole substance which he had possessed being distributed to pious causes, set out for the Holy Land, to war against the Saracens, and the other things of this kind annexed, I shall not indeed inquire more laboriously. That private persons dared to move wars in the Holy Land against the Saracens, before that celebrated expedition which, under the leadership of Godfrey of Bouillon, was undertaken toward the end of the eleventh century, would be feigned ineptly enough: but to assert that the same Bertulf followed Robert Count of Flanders in the aforesaid first Crusade, seems no less incongruous, lest otherwise his conversion be deferred to the beginning of the twelfth century. I know that the Anonymous premises the abdication of all goods to the sacred warfare; but neither thus are the deeds of Bertulf rightly divided in the times, inasmuch as he cannot aptly enough be said to have remained impenitent for fifteen years and more after the elevation of his holy spouse. Nor do I esteem likely what Malbrancus noted, namely that from the year 1088, in which he places the elevation of the Saint with Surius, Bertulf the husband did horrendous penitence among the monks of St. Winnoc. For the rest, by groping and wrestling with the darkness we profit nothing greatly. Whether Bertulf set out into Palestine, or remained in his country, matters very little: but the monastery of virgins, founded and endowed from his goods, that indeed will always be, in my judgment, an evident argument, that either he himself, or his heir daughter, ceded all the estates, for the redemption of the soul (so then was the phrase), to God and the Church; so that of the truth of the whole substance there can be no doubting at all, although all the old monuments regarding it have now perished, either by the carelessness of the nuns, or by devouring antiquity.

[194] concerning the cause of undertaking which, a conjecture. To this whole history of the Anonymous, more widely extended at the cited number 95, as it is plainly conjectural, and adapted to the times in which he lived; why should it not be lawful for us too to oppose, safely enough, a conjecture more agreeable to the earlier centuries? Why should we not, I say, suggest another conjecture, not plainly improbable; namely that Bertulf, agitated by the stings of conscience, on account of the so atrocious parricide committed, being now loosed from his second bonds, set out not indeed for Palestine, but, as at that time it was set in custom for criminal men, for Rome, to obtain from the supreme Pontiff pardon for the huge crime, under a due penitence, rigidly enough for such public crimes, wont at that time to be enjoined: and to whom therefore the Pontiff, for just satisfaction, prescribed to transcribe his goods as quickly as possible to the founding of a monastery of virgins, and, to wash away thoroughly the perpetrated parricide, to spend the remainder of his life, as perhaps he himself of his own accord had insinuated that he sought, among monks; in which certainly there occurs nothing at which anyone could or ought deservedly to recoil. There was afterward added the consent of Count Robert, and the approbation of the Bishop either of his own motion or delegated by the Pontiff: by which way there will be plainly saved what above Sanderus said; that the abbey of virgins of the Benedictine institute grew up under the auspices of the Counts and the Bishop, by the wealth of Bertulf the parricide. These things we adduce as a mere conjecture in this fog, for of exploring or revealing the certainty of the matter we have long ago despaired.

[195] From what has been disputed above it is already perceived, that the time, manner, and series of Bertulf's second marriage or conversion, The likely order of things. cannot be arranged rightly enough by anyone, unless by mere divination; so that anyone would marvel in vain that all the things which follow are involved in the same darkness. The narration of the Anonymous in the last chapters they can consult, who seek not a distinct and historical order of the deeds, but are delighted by a confused heap of matters. Form this hypothesis, if thou wilt. Not long, as we too have supposed above, after the martyrdom of St. Godeleva, Bertulf passed to a second marriage, and lived with that new spouse up to about the time of the elevation of the Saint, or up to the year 1083 or 1084, when a widower, he decreed to execute freely what he had often before determined in his mind, being at all events more and more compunct in heart, on account of those prodigies which he had seen with his own eyes, and which had been wrought for his favor, the infamous parricide ever watching before his eyes. Here fix the epoch, either of the Roman pilgrimage and the penitence undertaken, or of the free renunciation of the world, the abdication of goods, and the voluntary withdrawal into the monastery of Bergues of St. Winnoc; where how long he lived, when he obtained a happy end of life, let us ingenuously confess, it cannot be detected

hitherto.

[196] In vain through friends, both of ours and external, At St. Winnoc's only tradition survives, I have tried to gather or in any way obtain from the abbey of Bergues of St. Winnoc some notices regarding Bertulf, at least such as were certain and undoubted. They say that the destructions of the monastery, both by fires and by the devastations of wars, consumed both the books and all the old monuments, so that there it stands only in the sole and single ancient and persevering tradition, whatever concerning the religious life of Bertulf of Gistel and the most strait penitence there performed has been handed down to memory. Some men, otherwise notable and zealous for the glory of St. Godeleva, thought that in the same abbey there existed no common monuments concerning the sanctity of both spouses; and this I had more than once heard very confidently boasted; but that hope frustrated both them and me; they there know only their tradition, the rest they utterly ignore. Thus bears that widely known tradition, written to me not long ago by the very learned Man the Lord John Baptist Bruynsteen, advocate of causes at Bruges, who had received from the mouth of a Bergues monk not unlearned, familiar to him; that there once died in the opinion of sanctity a penitent, by name Bertulf, who had been the husband of St. Godeleva. His sepulchre is shown in the old temple, consumed by flames, distinguished by certain colored stones. They assert that the abbot of St. Winnoc (who or when, is not expressed), accompanied by a few senior monks, some years ago opened the aforesaid sepulchre, and found the body entire, surrounded on every side with chains.

[197] which the monk of the same place Amandus Belver Why these things were done so secretly and as it were furtively, I do not indeed sufficiently understand: that lamp ought not to have been put under a bushel, but at least to have been openly revealed to all the religious, nay even to the whole people, from whom nothing was to be feared for that entire body. What? that it deserved to be translated to the new temple, and buried in an honorable place, with that epitaph which thou hast in the Anonymous number 95. A cause must be supposed why those religious men were wont so to act, which we today ignore; perhaps because they esteemed all things not certain enough which were borne on the mouth of the common people; or they feared by such a declaration of the body to decree some cult to Bertulf. For the rest, to the already said things no small weight of authority can be added by a certain writing, found in our museum, sent to Father Godfrey Henschenius about fifty years ago, by him who thus subscribes: The Lord Amandus Belver, Benedictine religious in the abbey of St. Winnoc. The title of the writing is: From my manuscript Benedictine memorial, which is kept in our library of St. Winnoc. It is a brief extract of three little pages, and contains in all only three elogia taken from that Memorial. The first is of blessed Gervinus of Cassel from fol. 133, of whom we treated on 17 April. The third, from fol. 131, praises St. Ingenocus for 15 April; but he in our Acts was referred to 6 November, as to be joined with St. Winnoc. The elogium between the two, from fol. 185, regards our Bertulf for 6 July.

[198] inscribed in his Memorial. The author of the Memorial cites monuments of the place, which I know not where he found, since others assert that none survive. Likewise Drogo, Bishop of the Morini, religious of St. Winnoc. But what, I beseech, did he ever write concerning Bertulf, or could he write, who departed from life thirty years and more before Bertulf? Besides that here is repeated that confusion of the Drogos, which above we have abundantly torn apart. Besides these he adjoins to Bertulf the title of Blessed, by that authority, I suppose, by which several monastic writers today too freely adorn illustrious men of their Order with those adornments of sanctity. Let us give the elogium itself; 6 July, Blessed Bertulf, born of an illustrious place, husband of St. Godeleva, who by his command was strangled by her servants on this day at Gistel. Who, made penitent of so great a crime, betook himself to the abbey of St. Winnoc, where, made a religious lay-brother with great humility of mind, he exercised the vilest works; and, slaying himself by continual rigor of life, he so compelled the flesh to serve the spirit, that he came to great sanctity. For after death he was found clad in an iron cuirass, to which his flesh, on account of the length of time, had cleaved. Many years after his death, his body, breathing a most sweet odor, was found entire. Thus far the Memorial of Belver, or the compendium of the traditions of Bergues.

[199] Malbrancus's elogium What other monuments of the monks of Bergues Malbrancus saw, neither does he himself explain, nor is it easy for me to divine; those indeed he alleges, but he cites nothing separately besides the letters of the Lord Argentean the abbot, from which without doubt he describes not inelegantly the conversion of Bertulf, the order of times being neglected, since he recalls all things to the year 1088, in which he supposes the body of St. Godeleva to have been elevated, following Surius. One thing displeases, that he dares to assert the body of Bertulf, no less than that of his wife, to have been elevated. That the tomb was unsealed or opened, I do not deny. Let us hear him: But let the greatest miracle of Godeleva be Bertulf himself, whom, although mortals had condemned as abominable with a more-than-Scythian tyranny, yet from heaven his most excellent spouse beheld with a merciful eye, as the source and incitement not only of her hardships in this life, but also of immense beatitude and greater glory. Rightly therefore Augustine admonished: think not that the wicked are gratuitously in this world. Thus moreover he was converted to better fruit, thus from cruel made benign, thus from insolent modest, thus finally from a lost life he passed into an austere and blameless one, that only that change of the right hand of the Most High is to be attributed, received by the merits of Godeleva.

[200] His first care was to bedew with most bitter weepings the tomb of his wife, he records the whole matter more fully to weary her with so many prayers, until he felt within by what kind of life, by what norm of repentance, he could expiate his crime, to be bewailed with bloody tears. It came into his mind to seek the monastery of Bergues of St. Winnoc, to obtain for himself some cell, in which he might pass the remaining days of his life, but with that austerity which he would observe as the greatest among the more ancient anchorites. He came therefore to the doors of the monastery, and falling on his knees, asked that some corner be assigned to him for a seat, or rather a perpetual cloister, and, although he strip himself of all goods, that a splendid portion would fall to the profit of the monastery. He moved the ascetics to tears: marveling that a most infamous wolf had passed into a most meek sheep: but amazement grew, when they saw that he had entered upon the harshest manner of life; that he who was before a glutton, now [was] content with a little bread; that he who before pursued all kinds of delights, now loved mere solitude instead of games and huntings; the bare ground instead of a softer bolster; a needy life instead of treasures and hoards. But the chief instrument of his repentance was the iron cuirass, so constraining all his limbs, that its harshness could not, save after his death, be excogitated by the ascetics themselves.

[201] When he had for a long time performed that rigor of the monastic life, and much more elegantly. always with a strong and constant mind, at last he was called into the perpetual consortship of his Godeleva; that he might enjoy her beatitude, which nevertheless he had once so ill treated. He obtained a tomb in the front of the temple, near the old sacristy of St. Winnoc: whence it happened that his body, no less than his wife's, was elevated, and there was uncovered no light argument of true holiness: for the monks detected that he was still clad in the same cuirass; and looking more curiously, that the flesh had grown between little by little obolatim, through the length of the time in which he had continually worn it. Whence, what in others is an even and full surface of the body, in him [was] deformed, hispid, and swelling with a thousand tubercles; a spectacle in sight horrendous, but to the softer; but to the upright pleasant. Wherefore the senior monks, who once had enjoyed his most holy meeting and converse, gathered thence wonderful arguments of his sanctity, since after several years they found his body most sound, and of the same integrity in which it had been deposited, and moreover breathing a most grateful odor. Therefore the greatest miracle of Godeleva [was] Bertulf; the greatest also the charity of her virtues, which the greater in life, so the more powerful in heaven.

[202] The order and reckoning of the published Legends. And here at last the conclusion of our Commentary; to which must be subjoined the Legends of St. Godeleva, concerning which and their authors all the doubtful and controverted points seem sufficiently explained at the beginning of the work. Nothing here remains, save that we set forth the order of the things to be published. Long enough we hesitated doubtful, whether it were worth the labor to here print again that life which under the name of Drogo Surius published, with this title: The life and martyrdom of St. Godeleva, by the author Drogo monk and priest of Gistel; but the diction Brother Laurentius Surius changed almost the whole. For it seemed superfluous to bring into the midst the abridged life, while the genuine one itself, intact and entire, was being printed from the Aldenburg codex. But the opposite reason prevailed, that although Surius is most common, yet he is not in the hands of all, so that to curious readers it will be pleasant to be able to compare the Drogo of Surius with ours, and to perceive the changes and truncations, not from our faith alone, but more clearly of themselves. We shall give therefore in the first place the Aldenburg Drogo, whom we esteem entire and sincere: then the edition of Surius, in several points far diverse: finally that longer life of the Anonymous of Gistel, which has never hitherto been printed in Latin, no more than the Aldenburg Drogonian. If here and there more obscure things occur, which have not been cleared above, they will be illustrated by their own separate notes, after each several chapter of the Legends.

VITA

By the author Drogo, monk and priest.

From the Manuscript of the Monastery of Aldenburg, never before sincerely and entirely published.

Godeleva, Virgin Martyr, at Gistel in Flanders (S.)

BHL Number: 3592

FROM THE ALDENBURG MANUSCRIPT.

PROLOGUE.

To the Lord Ratbodo ^b, by the grace of God Bishop of the church of Noyon, Drogo ^c a monk and unworthy priest, wishes the good which surpasses every good. The fame of thy name and of thy nobility, most blessed Father, in many places is held great and worthy of record: inasmuch as thou art strong in the knowledge of letters, [and] studiest the need and utility of thy neighbors, like Martha; and equally receivest the words of the Lord, like Mary sitting at the feet. Which things, when in one person they are usefully found, are so cultivated by the students of wisdom: because that seems to be according to the divisions of the grace of God; because what they observe ^d to be lacking to themselves, that namely, granted by the good Creator, they rejoice to be in a brother. Nor that indeed undeservedly, for the singular sacrament of charity reigns in those, who what one desires for himself, without doubt wishes for his neighbor. But, most excellent Prelate, since I behold thee, according to the preaching, according to the praise of many, held eminent by frequent hearing; that indeed I diligently premeditate in my mind to be a worthy deed, that thou who shinest in the endowment of all virtues shouldst be to me as an altar ^e, that thou mayst counsel me upon my consideration, and sustain me, laboring in my feet,

with thy sweet help. For by the most frequent exhortation of many of the faithful I have been compelled, to do what is above my strength, to describe the martyrdom of holy Godeleph: first, of what parents she was born, and, now marriageable, to what man she was betrothed, and by whose snares, and by whom and how she was martyred. These things therefore, as they truly were worthy of report and fit for record, I have described likewise in sheets, and sent to thee, most sweet Father, that by thy authority (if indeed thou judgest them worthy) they may remain ratified and firm, and to whomsoever they shall come, may avail by the pontifical decree. Nevertheless, venerable Father, before they be read by many, first thou thyself, of whatever sort these our writings are, read them; cut away the superfluous, to the less shining, add the way [*] of prayer, that thy works may shine, which seek to shine more amply. But we indeed the things which we have written, that they are so, from those who today are also witnesses, and who saw them, have heard. Nor therefore let anyone reprehend me, since that many did equally, holy authority, though I be silent, proclaims. But to thy judgment, and the judgment of the wise, if by some over these I be reprehended, I will leave [it], and according to my power, having begun the prayer, I will come. Farewell.

ANNOTATA.

* Is it not rather "force"?

CAPUT I.

The birth of St. Godeleva, the endowments of mind and body, the nuptials with Bertulf, his and his mother's hatred and inhuman harshness toward the Saint: compelled by hunger and injuries, she flees to her parents, and is brought back again to her husband.

Noble by birth and adorned with illustrious endowments, Blessed Godeleva therefore existed in the province of Boulogne, in the village which is called Londefort, sprung of a father Infrid, a mother Ogeva ^a, namely of honest and honored parents; but this grace of nobility she adorned more splendidly with ingenuous morals and holiness of life. Since indeed, while still weak in age, she began to transcend the very years of childhood with so great maturity of morals, that to all who savor of the things which are above, it was clearly given to observe, that for some ornament of his Church, that supreme artificer wished to polish this pearl. Since indeed, as we have said, in the flowering years of her primeval disposition, anticipating the life of the old, she seemed so far to surpass by the sincerity of an immaculate mind, that in her tender breast thou wouldst already discern the impressed image of sanctity. For she was so illustrious in all honesty of morals, so composed to holiness, and so prudently instructed in all things, that thou wouldst believe this very thing to have been received of his fullness, whose virtue is great, and of whose wisdom there is no number. But besides some endowments of spiritual grace, she was also of egregious form and wondrous beauty, and gracious to the eyes of all. This alone in her a reproachful intention could vituperate, that she was of black hair and black eyebrows.

[3] Nor is it established that it was done without divine governance, that it shone in the open that she obtained such a name: she is given in marriage to Bertulf the Fleming, for as we believe, God disposing, who, those whom he predestines, these he also calls, the presaging name Godeleva was given her: for Godeleva, the name in Teutonic ^b, sounds "Dear to God" in Latin. She therefore, the bounds of childhood being run through, when she had come to a strengthened age, many ardently love her, and desirously labor to contract marriage with her. Among whom was a Fleming, Bertulf by name, who, kindling with love of the same virgin, unlocks to her parents the secrets of his desire, and demands that the girl be betrothed to him; to whom, because he was notable by race according to the flesh, strong in wealth, and excelling the other suitors in honor, the noble handmaid of Christ was leagued by the nuptial bond. But although he was sprung of most noble births, yet in morals he existed dissimilar, as afterward the text of our narration will show. But therefore, as we judge, the hidden arbiter permitted his beloved to be joined to one so impious, that in him the proclamation of the admirable woman's patience might be tried, and the simplicity of the innocent woman be proved. For to those who love God all things cooperate unto good. Finally when he had led her to the dwellings of his property, he is deceived by the fraud of the malignant enemy, who through envy cast the first men out of the paradise of felicity, and repenting of the deed, soon held his spouse hated with a very great hatred, so that greater was the hatred with which he hated her, than the love with which before he had loved her.

[4] This is at all events the man, who when he was in honor, who at once with his mother pursues her with dire hatred. understood not, [and] was compared to the senseless beasts of burden, not attending to what is written; Blessed is the man of a good woman, and a holy and modest woman [is] grace upon grace; and that of the Scripture commanding; Depart not from a sensible and good woman, whom thou hast obtained in the fear of God; for the grace of her modesty is above gold. But the mother by words of reproach exaggerates the weight of her son's grief, whom metaphorically addressing; Why, she says, hast thou brought a crow from a strange land? Couldst thou not find very many in thine own country? But she said this, as we have foretasted, because she was of black hair and black eyebrows, for in flesh she was white and beyond measure lovely in aspect. O envy, first biting to thyself! O craft of Satan and huge cruelty, ever persecuting holy things! Ever felicity lies open to envy, ever envy follows virtues, and lightnings strike the highest mountains. Behold the wicked mother-in-law, falling into the mousetrap of the devil, by whose envy death entered into the globe of the lands, derogates from her daughter-in-law, provokes her son to hatred; and she who ought to have rejoiced together, at her son's happy nuptials, fears not to administer occasion and fuel of envy. Nevertheless it is not to be marveled at, if in men malice have its seat, since by the zeal of the Pharisees our Lord was crucified, and in paradise too there was the serpent, and all the Saints, we have known, had rivals. For that the just would unjustly suffer evils from the unjust, the Apostle testifies, saying: All who will to live piously in Christ shall suffer persecution. Gold, as the Scripture says, the fire proves, and just men the furnace of tribulation. For that I may use the words of Bl. Gregory; I esteem that he cannot be Abel, whom the malice of Cain does not exercise. But one is the persecution which material severity twists forth; another, which the adversity of vices begets. But what do I, passing over the order of narrating?

[5] Despised by her husband and deserted, Therefore at the nuptials, which were celebrated for three days, the bridegroom would not be present, lest namely he behold her whom he held hated. But the mother with the friends procured the things necessary which the order of the nuptials required; raging within, flattering without; and, in as much as she could, eager to conceal the poison of envy drawn forth, on account of the banqueters. But as, what we ardently will, we cannot dissemble; so what we altogether will not, we can with difficulty feign ourselves to will: for the brow of a man properly brings forth the mantle of the mind. For the face is the mirror of the mind, and confesses the secrets of the silent heart. After the third day Bertulf returned to his own home: and without delay, his spouse being spurned, his household dismissed, together with the dwellings of his property, he sought his paternal house to inhabit. So the spouse of Christ, hateful to her husband, but lovable to Christ, resides at home, governs the household, exhibits herself irreprehensible, ever modest in disposition, ever excelling in the modesty of chastity, so that neither could any of the slanderers hear anything of her, nor could rumor feign anything. Who, lest she grow torpid by idleness, and be rendered sluggish by sloth, because idleness enervates virtues and ministers aliments to vices, and idleness is the enemy of the soul; now to spinning, now to weaving, now to prayer she gave leisure: namely, that she might repel all the arrows of thoughts, with which youth is wont to be struck, according to the most salubrious admonition of a certain wise [man], with a shield of this kind. Through the night too, that the obstinate and blinded mind of her husband might be illustrated by the grace of the divine visitation, she prayed with tears, fulfilling that of the psalter: I will wash my bed through every night, I will bedew my couch with my tears ^c.

[6] she is subjected to a servant, to be afflicted with injuries, But that it might be fulfilled which was said; He who is holy, let him be sanctified still, and he who is in filth, let him grow filthy still; Bertulf

putting no end to his malice, inasmuch as he was hard and most wicked and malicious, and from a husband about to become a half-murderer, deceived by diabolical fraud, from day to day, against the handmaid of Christ, namely his spouse, rages with a sharper envy, and, the counsel of his parents upon this being shared, sets over her a home-born slave, who should serve her malevolently and not without grief, and who should offer her a little bread by the day, and this at a set hour; more strictly forbidding that he indulge anything else to his wife in food or in drink; but if he did, he should know that he would be punished with a grave vengeance. And so the handmaid of Christ is subjected to him, by the command of her husband, whom she had as a servant, by his servile condition. Behold how undeserved, how undeservedly the grief is doubled! For as the solace of an evil is the dignity of the adversary; so on the contrary the unworthiness of the inflicter doubles the grief of the sufferer. Hence again it is not to be marveled at, if the burden of grief be from this the more heaped up, that she suffers injuries from him, who was bound by right to endure with her all the crises of this world, whatever prosperous, whatever adverse things had befallen, the grief being shared with her, and at once patiently to live, and at once delightfully to die; inasmuch as they ought to be two in one flesh, or rather to be made one body by the coupling of marriage.

[7] Therefore the glorious handmaid of Christ is affected with contumelies, compelled to live on a small portion of bread and water; harried with injuries, reproaches, and derisions; yet she breaks not forth into the excess of murmuring or complaint, but with a silent heart, her mind well conscious, preserves patience, as if she had read the words of the truth, saying: In your patience you shall possess your souls. Exulting over the weight of bread allotted to her, she gives thanks to God, receives half in the day with salt and water, distributes half to the needy. But not yet does Satan rest, who according to his name ever opposes the salvation of the faithful, and cannot be sated with the blood of Martyrs. For thus we read that he himself spoke to the Lord, after the substance of Job was lost, after his house was overthrown, after his children were slain: Skin, he says, for skin, and all things that a man has, he will give for his soul: but stretch forth thy hand and touch his bones and flesh, unless he bless thee to the face. Very many give alms, but of their own body they give nothing; they extend a hand to the needy, but overcome by the pleasure of the flesh, they whiten the things which are without, but within are full of the bones of the dead.

[8] But not such was that blessed woman; daily she offered a holocaust to the Lord, half of which she herself dispenses to the poor, not of another's cattle, but of her own body. For with so incredible patience she endured the injuries inflicted both by her husband and by the servants, that with the Prophet she could not undeservedly have chanted; When the sinner stood against me, I was dumb: I was humbled and was silent from good things. And again: But I as one deaf, heard not, and as one dumb not opening his mouth. For the strict scantiness imposed on her, daily immolating to the Lord a grateful sacrifice of hymns, she did not curse back her husband cursing her, but according to the precept of the Apostle, she blessed, and prayed for those persecuting and calumniating her. But she is roused still more sharply in the contest, that she may be heaped with greater rewards in tribulation; that namely, the sharper temptations of the ancient enemy, ever assailing her, she conquered, so much the more heaped would be the glory of her contending with pious long-suffering. Bertulf her spouse, ever setting against her evils for good and hatred for love, when he saw that she could neither be cast down by molestations, nor attenuated by the fasting of hunger, became grievous to himself, and began to turn diverse thoughts concerning her death in his doubtful mind. Often it cleaved to his heart, that he should not suffer her longer to live; but because he knew her kindred, from the remarkable scheme of nobility, to be by birth most excellent, he dared not openly kill [her]. Finally, hoping that he could wear her down with still greater molestations, he disposes to afflict [her] with a still greater injury of hunger; that either thus, overcome by molestations, she might not think of God, or from impatience might murmur. And so he orders the half of the bread before granted to be withdrawn from her each day.

[9] But the beloved handmaid of Christ, embracing patience over the diminution of her daily allowance, inasmuch as she had now begun to found her house, not upon the lightness of sand, but upon the solidity of the rock; the portion being restricted even to the half. although she saw that it would be most difficult for her to be able to live on so little a stipend; yet she deliberated within herself, to render cheerfully what she had once vowed to God, according to that of the Scripture commanding: If thou vow a vow to the Lord thy God, delay not to render it: because the Lord will seeking seek it of thee. And so half of the half of the bread she bestows on the poor ^d, with the rest, in her wonted manner, she is refreshed. Holy Godeleva, more instantly and ardently insisting on prayer and contrition of heart, to God, who is near to all who invoke him in truth, turns herself with entire devotion, praying thus: O thou God, creator of all; be, I beseech, mindful of my frailty, and forsake me not in the day of tribulation. Thou who deliverest those who sustain thee, comfort me in the pressing storm of persecution: and although by my husband the customary weight of daily bread be diminished, thou nevertheless, not denying me the affect of good will, make that I may ever please thee by the obsequy of pious devotion. O the wholesome and ardent intention of the holy woman, in desire of holy virtue! Perhaps she had heard what is written: Before the eyes of God the hand is never empty of a gift, if the altar of the heart be filled with good will. Only her liberality in this exceeded measure, nor is she content with the counsel of the Apostle, saying: Not that to others there be refreshment, but to you tribulation, but out of equality in this time, that your abundance [be] for their want: for whence she furnished refreshment to others, thence she felt the discomfort of penury.

[10] She is at last compelled to flee to her parents, Nor is it to be passed over in silence, that the Lord had suffused his beloved with so great grace, that not only those whom she had kindled to love of her by affability or familiarity, but even those who knew her by name alone, loved [her], and groaned over her injuries. But Bertulf's own people favor him, inasmuch as they run of their own accord to the cross; whose feet are swift to run into evil; they incite the cruel [man] against the humble woman, the harsh against the innocent, who of himself was injurious and calumnious enough; and her whom they ought justly to love, they persecute with her husband, with unjust hatred. So her husband, together with his household, persecuting her more harshly than usual, she is at last compelled to flee, and with bare feet, only one companion being taken, to return to her native soil; where she makes known to her parents the history of her calamity with tearful sighs [*], and sets forth in order what she had suffered from her husband or his household. The father therefore, her daughter's complaints being heard, groaned more deeply, and, condescending to her with paternal affect, began to deliberate within himself what needed to be done. And the counsel of friends upon this being shared, he sought Baldwin ^e Count of the Flemings, and, laying open to him in order what contemptuous injuries his daughter had suffered from her husband, asked that he show justice to himself. But the Count directs him to the diocesan Bishop ^f of his son-in-law, who in those days honorably drove the chariot of the holy church of Noyon. who through the Count and the Bishop try to compose the matter.

[11] The Bishop, he says, by the decree of the government undertaken, is held by vigilant care to correct any errors in his bishopric, to compel the perverse, that they may repent, by ecclesiastical severity; a cause of this kind is ecclesiastical, and ought to be treated or terminated only before an ecclesiastical judge. But if thy son-in-law will not obey the episcopal admonition, I will exist as a severe avenger, and will imperiously compel him, as a bridegroom, to receive his bride. For to this indeed the divine justice established in the Church, that there be a Pastor among the people, a Prince in the world, that the one correct the sinning, but the other, by correcting, amend the negligent. But I ask the prudent reader, that in this, that she, entering upon flight, returned to her country, he believe not that the acts of the Martyr deviated from the Evangelical precepts, by which to decline the onset of persecution, we are either permitted or commanded; since it is written: The spirit indeed is prompt, but the flesh weak; and, with the Philosopher as witness, the chief care to mortals is of retaining life. For we read that many Saints, terrified by the harshness of passion, fled not from weakness, but from the trepidation of the flesh.

ANNOTATA.

* [he] explains.

CAPUT II.

The huge obstinacy of Bertulf in persecuting his wife, [she] most patiently tolerating all things; the barbarous strangling of the same by the servants; the blood turned into white stones; the burial and several miracles soon following.

Although Bertulf raged more sharply than usual, Therefore Bertulf, both by episcopal authority and by secular power, is compelled to receive his bride, whom he promises to treat kindly and honorably. But he is to be believed to have obeyed the precept of the Prince, rather than the authority of the Pontiff; since, as a certain wise [man] says; Among the authors of crime, authority is according to authority. For the wicked hate to sin more from dread of punishment, than from love of virtue. Alas for grief! the last deeds of that man are made worse than the first. Truly the mind is not drawn unwilling to love. Bertulf indeed is rolled in the same taint of bitterness as before;

he is tormented in the recesses of his heart with envy and hatred, and grieves that she lives, who was to him grievous even to see. Whence he now destined in his heart to slay her by an impious murder; in every way busying himself, that by such craft of art he might be made master of his wish, that the crime committed might be imputed neither to himself nor to any of his friends. But the spouse of Christ, seeing her husband made not milder toward her but more ferocious, with the whole affect of her heart cries to the Lord, that he, whom the winds and the sea obey, would turn her storm into a breeze. And the Lord, who from heaven looked upon the earth, that he might loose the sons of the slain, condescended to the prayers of his beloved, nor permitted her to be cast down by any storms of persecutions from the citadel of sanctity, but ever the more firmly corroborated her with the hope of future glory.

[13] The Saint does not suffer anyone to disparage him, Some also of Bertulf's friends disparaged him, and spoke against him, because neither by the fear of God, nor by the authority of the Pontiff, nor by the edict of the Prince had the ferocity of his breast been mitigated. And when many, condoling with her misery, cursed her husband, and imprecated on him divine vengeance, she rebuked them, saying: Do not, dearest ones, do not curse my husband, but rather bless [him]; for by divine precept we are commanded, not only not to curse those cursing [us], but even to bless them; to pray for those persecuting and calumniating us; to conquer evil, not in evil, but in good. Thou seest, that this blessed woman, although far dissimilarly, yet by the example of the Apostle, writing to the Corinthians; suffers tribulation, but is not straitened; is perplexed, but is not destitute; suffers persecution, but is not forsaken. For although her father and her mother forsook her, yet the Lord took her up, and gave to her, according to what the same Apostle wished for the Ephesians, namely according to the riches of his glory, to be corroborated in virtue, through his spirit, in the inner man; namely that Christ dwell by faith in her heart. And it is also worthy to be told because it is marvelous, and therefore worth the labor to insert in the narration, with how fiery a love the Lord kindled his beloved, and how marvelously he who is marvelous in the Saints filled her with the spirit of wisdom and understanding. For when many, condoling with her by human compassion, said that she alone was one who would neither have the allurements of the flesh, nor enjoy the delights of the world; she, weighing what they said as frivolous, despised [it] with great constancy of mind, and, wishing to admonish them by the manifest truth of reasons, and by evident exhortation, to the contempt of worldly things, broke forth into words of this kind.

[14] Carnal delights I do not require, the enticements of the world I do not covet. but the delights of the world being spurned, What profits it, to feed the flesh about to die with the luxury of delights and the affluence of pleasures, which soon will be compelled to go into rottenness, and to return into the dust, from which it was taken? The glory of man is as hay, whose end daily hastens into the destruction of ashes. For the blessed woman weighs how vain is carnal delectation; how it can neither help when past, nor remain when present, since all the things of this world are vain, fallen, transitory, false, and deceiving. Since indeed death takes away all things, all things fall by death. For as a certain philosopher says; Death spurns lofty glory, wraps up the humble and the lofty head alike, and equals the lowest to the highest. Here it pleases to behold to what this blessed woman is to be likened: is it not to the adamant stone? For as the adamant, cut by hammers, is not broken, so she, while she is assailed by snares, while she is pricked by tribulations, while she is torn by envy, is not cast down or moved from the state of her mind, because she was founded upon the firm rock: but the rock was Christ.

[15] But behold, while we write these things, we groan; not envying her virtue, having meditated on heavenly things alone, but condoling with our own misery: inasmuch as to every vicissitude of things, whether they be sad or glad, we are varied by an inconstant fluctuation of mind; neither strong in adversities, nor humble through the prosperities of peace; like the reed which the wind tosses, and the river at once makes to slip; and the sand which of its own accord breaks, because sometimes through the cowardice of mind and its instability, even without temptation we are cast down. If we are troubled, not only do we not bear tribulation patiently, but on the contrary, we break forth into the corruption of impatience and murmuring. But here I fear that some of the detractors will taunt us, saying; that we wish to insinuate an officious verbosity from art rather than the truth of things, as if we wished, like the crow of Aesop, to adorn ourselves with others' colors, and that we do by the example of the Psalmist saying; Praise the Lord in his Saints, [and] by appetite of glory, seem to omit the truth for the sake of the ornament of words.

[16] But whoever there shall be, who is about to calumniate us for multiplying words; the author shows a little more fully, it is clearly given to understand, that he has not blushed to derogate from the elect of God, since it is most certain, that God is praised in his Saints, and the head of the Martyrs is honored in the Martyrs; because by angelic authority we are taught, that to hide the sacrament of a king is good, but to confess and reveal the works of the Lord is honorable. Again someone, of no sound head, with obstinate mind is about to say; what reward will anyone merit, for the injuries which he suffers unwilling? Let him therefore hear, not me, but blessed Jerome, saying: Let our conscience be secure, that this, which we suffer not on account of sins, and affliction in the world, is an augmentation of rewards. We do not believe that this blessed Martyr is to be held unequal to the other Saints, whom Christ, the glory and crown of Martyrs, testifies truly to live with him in heaven; because he adorned her with innumerable miracles and does not cease to adorn [her] even today on earth. But let no one solicitously inquire, whether perchance, while she lived, she did signs of miracles, since after she ceased to die and began to live, daily her merits, our Lord Jesus Christ working, are proved to be shown by a frequency of virtues. For we know that our God approves more the merit of a good life, than the effect of corporal signs. For the Evangelical poet says; the merit of good ceasing, the miracles are nothing, which the wicked for the most part do. And the Truth in the Gospel commanded the disciples to learn not signs and prodigies of him, but humility and meekness.

[17] as also having prophesied her future glory. But lest the digression beget tedium to readers, let us return to the things proposed. Therefore we will not cover with unfruitful silence, that the Lord not only enriched the mind of his Saint with the discourse of exhortation and erudition, but also filled [her] with the spirit of prophecy. For when some, as we have foretasted, condoling with her, uttered before her mournful-wandering voices, and called her unhappy: soon thundering with a prophetic spirit, she restrained them, saying: Do not pour forth tears in vain, and do not wish to esteem me unhappy: for not, as you judge, am I unhappy, although tribulation and straitness have found me in the present, because above all the Flemish women ^b who today survive, I shall be exalted and raised on high. And this will do for me he who is mighty, who raises the crushed and looses the fettered; and who heals the contrite of heart, and gladdens the saddened in deed. That too seems incongruous to be hidden under the bushel of silence, that when certain of the monks, of consummate religion, had come to her for the sake of visitation, either to refresh [her] by the exhortation of the salutary word, or to wipe away the tears of the mourner with the hand of pious consolation; on the contrary they testified that they had been so refreshed and edified by her with such pasture of sound doctrine, and with sweet-flowing exhortation, that they doubted not that divine philosophy was implanted in her mind. Now of her life let these things said suffice; hence let the pen return, to weave the narration how she passed from this life.

[18] The slaying of the Virgin being at last decreed, And when thus every fraud and every contrivance of guile of the aforesaid Bertulf, God ordaining, was made void, so that neither by hunger, nor by any device of his craft could he make the holy Woman perish, he began to meditate, and to be disturbed within himself by the frequent agitation of his thoughts, and, boiling within with the unbridled stings of wrath, and sometimes moving his troubled lips, he revolved such things in his mind: Can anything of such kind be found by the cunning of human wit, which may be to my mind for a remedy? For I live and live ill, while I see all my wit overcome ^c, by whose life I waste away; which flourishing, life is vile to my body. Hunger has not oppressed her, long fasts have not worn her down: nay she flourishes uninjured, and the more she is oppressed and worn by contraries, so much the more brightly does the age of her youth prevail. But if by this way the means of my purpose has not proceeded, let another be found, be tried, be attempted. By iron, or by fire, or by water she may perish, or even by some other torment, which our practice shall invent. By these furies he is agitated, is moved in sense; first wounding and tearing his own mind without iron, before he touched her with torment. Then he calls two servants, namely Lambert and Hacca; he seeks counsel, what he might attempt upon her; by what kind of torments he might deliver her to death. They answer as it seemed good to them; they proffer a more useful counsel and confirm the purpose. They set a day, they find the kind of torment, by which she may more easily perish and the deed be done more secretly: moreover they impose a time, and what of the day or of the night is held more useful or more secret for doing this.

[19] Now the day had come, nay even the time was at hand, in which, Bertulf, circumventing her with flatteries what and of what sort she was, a woman full of God, might be manifested, and be rewarded with the glory of heaven, whose heart the divine grace irradiated from on high, whom the virtue of patience and humility more evidently marked. But even in that night, in which she was to be slain by the fraud of the criminals, before the setting of the sun, her husband came to her. First he kisses her with a feigned mouth, embraces [her], putting forth from his mouth a laugh, [he] who bore poison in his breast. Then he did what was of his unwontedness toward her: he sat beside her, as with cheerful face or glad heart. Both therefore sit down on the seat ^d, [and] she, since she feared to approach her husband, and would show reverence, as a deed worthy of her husband; he drew her to himself with his hand, consoles her, fearing, with mild words, then, having such a beginning of his speech, addresses the handmaid of the Lord: It is to me of no small sadness, that toward thee I am of so fierce a spirit, and seem to be held of so pertinacious a mind, that neither art thou consoled by my presence, nor delighted with sweet address, nor with the common pleasure of the flesh. But that indeed I know not what misfortune has invaded us, I know not what discord has disjoined my mind, that I both became of alienated spirit from thee, and seemed not to be master of my heart. As it seems to me, it was sown by the wicked [one]; for he shakes the hearts of mortals, now kindling this one with envy, now this one with hatred. But I wish to impose an end to the dissension of mind, and to cherish thee as a dear wife, and thus by little and little, hatred being set aside, that both minds and bodies may come together into one.

[20] O breast infected with all malice! O poisonous tongue of the Man! he feigns a manner found of restoring love: Thou imitatest Judas the betrayer

of God in [his] crime: he bears to the mild lamb kisses, with a composed fraud, thou offerest kisses to thy spouse, and with a guileful heart addressest the innocent woman. He delivered the King and Lord of all to the hateful crowds, driven by a price; thou deliverest thy spouse to servants to be rewarded by thee, at whatever price of a gift. Therefore, if it is lawful for us to compare great things with small, the lowest with the highest, there will be held an equal penalty, an equal weight in the proper crime. I have found, he says, a woman, who boasts that she can glue us together with firm love, and make us for continual time such, that nowhere may two joined ones more love each other. This business indeed I have committed to Lambert and Hacca my servants: these will bring the woman to thee; to these entrust this whole matter. Therefore for this reason I foretell this matter to thee, lest it be unknown to thee; that thou reject [it] not, nor even be moved in mind. When the crafty man had finished these things, she answered: I am the handmaid of God, to him I commit all my things; nevertheless, if without any admixture of crime this can be done, I grant [it]. O happy and to God devoted Woman! God thou reconcilest to thyself before all things, he is held to thee for a care: thou fearest for thyself, lest by a magical thing she be separated from thee, [and] for that reason desirest the marriage, lest thou lose God the joiner of marriage. When she had finished the things said above, she was silent. But Bertulf, leaping up from the bench ^e on which he sat, mounting his horse, went to Bruges to spend the night, there about to wait until the destruction of his spouse should be announced to him, that he might be esteemed as it were immune from the committed crime.

[21] meanwhile by night she is strangled by two servants, But on the following night, all sleeping, lo Lambert and Hacca are present, and rouse their lady from sleep. Arise, they say, Lady, for solicitous for thy cause we have come, and we bring to thee the woman of whom our lord spoke. Behold, before thy gates she stands, already awaiting thee this long while: come, arise, hasten, be not to thyself a loss of thy own advantage. First she fortifies herself with the sign of the holy Cross, then commended herself wholly to God; and when she prepared to wish to put on her garments, these urging forbid [her]. With bare feet, they say, with spread hair, clothed only in a shift thou shalt come, for so it is certain, that the thing profits thee: only in the still of the night, at midnight and before the dawn, this indeed will have to be done by thee. Soon she subjoined to their answers: To almighty God I commend myself, I am his creature, what shall be done of me, let the most clement [God] see; and now to your faith I give myself: and rising she proceeded to go with them. But what they did or what they said once or twice, was frivolous, rather guile and fraud, [and] does not even seem worthy of note. But the third time, when she was equally deceived by the same, they set a noose about her neck, and at once with their hands strangle her throat, lest she be heard crying out, with all their force. And when they had now felt her lifeless, they immerse [her] in water, that if anything of life or breath remained, that element might extinguish it. And by a wonderful disposition of God this was done, that if anything was darkened by the admixture of the earthly habitation, [it] should by this element be purged and rendered white.

[22] not without a miracle buried. But afterward she enjoys the office of her enemies, for the dead Godeleva her malefactors carry to her own bed, replace [her], cover [her] with garments. But the sun now ascending higher into the sky, the household mutters among itself; what is the cause, that it hinders their lady from rising: for she was wont, either before the dawn, or at the beginning of the dawn, to rise hastily, to admonish others, to go to church. Wherefore they marveled; yet they were unwilling to awaken their lady, believing her to be detained either by infirmity or by sleep. But when now a later hour of the day proceeded, the chamber is entered, [she] is tried to be roused; but dead she cannot be roused. Rumor flies, the neighbors are present; the body is contemplated, but no wound, no sign of iron is found in the whole body: but only on the neck a bloody circle appeared, where the wicked [men] had set the noose. Some affirmed her deceased by a natural death, others behind were muttering something else. And how she was loved by her own, this is given to understand: on the same day the burial is hastened; and because bread was lacking which might be dispensed for the health of the soul, one goes to buy grain; but the same grain was for gain to its buyer, for it so increased of itself, reduced into flour, that it exceeded measure and quantity, and the buyer marveled at the deed of the sign, saying: Praise to thee, God, to thy honor she was liberal, but according to her power she lived for the poor, this too in this miracle thou hast divinely demonstrated.

[23] Nay even a part of the earth, where she was slain, The earth turned into white stones; was turned ^f into white stones, that the Lord might demonstrate her merit, and might make manifest to every faithful [one] the place of her destruction. Which so happened. Certain persons, out of devotion to the Saint, took the earth, and carried it home, which afterward they marveled to be turned into gems. I myself, who write these things, coming as a witness, saw the same, and over this blessed the name of the Lord.

[24] Another element too Almighty God converted to the glory of his honor, the water rendered disease-driving. that he might make public what and how great was the merit of the woman there submerged: for whosoever, pressed by the discomfort of fever, whosoever by the sufferings of other infirmities, coming there, drank that water, rejoiced that they had straightway received the desired health, by her merits.

[25] Likewise how greatly they stood at her sepulchre, Miracles at the tomb. the Lord of heaven very often demonstrated, since he marked the same tomb, and equally the place, nay even her very body, with heavenly signs. But we shall say a few of many, and bring the testimonies of the signs into the midst, that by these anyone may easily believe how greatly the handmaid of God flourishes in the glory of the heavens.

[26] A father carried his son, already contracted from the first years of his birth, A contracted boy healed there, to her sepulchre, that he might merit to be healed by her merits, praying. But after some time the contracted [boy] is raised up, whom sound the same father led back home. But that boy was called Algotus: who because he was a boy, was prepared to be instructed in letters; but after he grew into manly strength, ascending little by little, he received the rank of the diaconate in order.

[27] A certain contracted woman, before the door of the monastery of St. Trudo, as also a contracted [woman.] lay for nine years, awaiting in that place that she might be healed with others. But, many being healed, many being raised up, she alone is kept unhealed, that by the providence of the Lord the merit of the buried Saint might be manifested far and wide. Finally, the fame of the memory of holy Godeleph being heard, she caused herself to be carried to the place, and there praying, awaits the mercy of the Lord. But indeed not much tarrying in that place she is raised up [and] healed, and returns on foot, safe and glad, to the place of her birth. And in a wonderful manner this was done, for she appears of that piety toward the needy, of what piety toward them she had been, while living and strong she flourished in the human body.

[28] A certain man on the Sabbath day, at the hour when it was least lawful, Ears of grain cleaving to a man's hand loosed; gathered ears in the field, to whose hand the collection of ears cleaved. With his other hand he tried to pluck off the ears, but was not at all able. Thou wouldst discern him wishing to let them go, and not even able: thou wouldst see him helping himself with his hand, but the ears cohering more and more. Soon recognizing his guilt in the deed, he came to the sepulchre of the woman, now often said, [and] by prayer sought the earth. The prayer not yet finished, the fingers are extended, from the hand too the ears fall, and the palm appears.

[29] likewise a staff affixed to a woman's hand. A solemn and festive day was at hand, which was held celebrated by the people. The priest standing by, after the Masses, commanded that it be observed and that no one do any work on it. A woman of the same village, making little of the precept, prepared a dye in a vat; she took a staff to stir it; forthwith the staff cleaved to each hand. She wrestles, now extending, now contracting her arms, but labors in vain. The rumor of the sign flies, the household is present, the neighbors run together. Some of the bystanders try to wrench [it] from her hands, some fear to touch [it] before [her]. At last, compelled by her punishment, she sought the tomb of her helper, [she] prayed [and] sought the merits of the holy woman of God: amid tears and words of prayer, then the fingers, then the hands are suddenly deprived of the staff; the staff falls, the woman returned home sound.

ANNOTATA.

^f. The Anonymous asserts these things of the earth of the sepulchre, in which the body of the Martyr was deposited; but far greater faith is to be given to this our Drogo.

Now follows the life published by Surius, the title being preserved word for word, which he himself prefixed.

THE LIFE AND MARTYRDOM OF ST. GODELEVA,

By the author Drogo, Monk and Priest of Gistel: but the diction Brother Laurentius Surius changed almost the whole.

Godeleva, Virgin Martyr, at Gistel in Flanders (S.)

BHL Number: 3592

From Surius.

Prologue to Bishop Ratbodo To the Lord Ratbodo, by the grace of God Bishop of Noyon, Drogo, a monk and unworthy priest, wishes the good which surpasses every good. Wearied by the prayers of many and by frequent exhortation, most holy Prelate, although it exceeds my strength, I have been compelled to commit to writing the martyrdom of St. Godeleva. Those things therefore which were worthy of report, these I have written, and judged that they should be sent to thee, that by thy authority, if thou so judge, being strengthened, they may remain firm and ratified. But the things which we have written, that they are for certain so, we have received from those who today still survive, and beheld them with their own eyes: which nevertheless, if perchance anyone should wish to take upon himself things to be censured, are permitted to thy judgment and that of the wise: I according to my strength gird myself to the narration.

[1] Blessed Godeleva in the territory of Boulogne, in the village Country and parents of St. Godeleva. which is called Londefort, of a father Wifrid, a mother Ogina, of honest and honored parents, was born: which nobility of stock nevertheless she herself illustriously illustrated with morals and holiness of life. For in the very flowering years of her first age she bore before her mature morals, so far that she seemed endowed with all honesty and sanctity. Moreover, besides the egregious endowments of her mind, she was also of signal elegance of form and beauty of body: except that perhaps malicious men could vituperate in her her black hair, and eyebrows of the same color. Nor indeed is it to be thought to have happened without the governance of divine providence,

that she received the name of Godeleva. For Godeleva is rendered in Latin, "Dear to God." But when now she had exceeded the bounds of childhood, and had attained the just strength of age, she was eagerly sought by many in marriage. Among these was a certain Fleming, Bertulf by name, who, inflamed with love of her, sets forth to her parents the heat of his mind, and greatly prays that she be betrothed to him. But he was notable by race and strong in wealth. And so Godeleva was betrothed to him. But although he was conspicuous by most noble births, yet in morals, as we shall say below, he was least of all congruous to Godeleva. But the most powerful God permitted, as indeed I judge, his beloved to be joined to a man so impious, that both in him he might set forth the most certain documents of her admirable patience, and the simplicity of the innocent Godeleva might be proved: since to those who love God all things cooperate unto good.

[2] When therefore Bertulf had brought her to his house, She is deserted by her spouse Bertulf and most ill treated. the fraud of the malignant enemy working this, he began to be led by repentance, that he had chosen her as his spouse. Therefore with the sharpest hatred he pursued her, so that hatred conquered the love with which before he had burned. But to that hatred his mother too suggested fomentations, saying to him: Why didst thou wish to bring a crow hither from a strange region? Were there not very many in thy native soil, whom thou mightst seek? By these things namely was the handmaid of Christ exercised: but most rightly was it said by the Apostle, that all who will to live piously in Christ shall suffer persecution: and, as another place of Scripture has [it], Gold the fire proves, and just men the furnace of tribulation. The nuptials were celebrated for three days, but at them the bridegroom would not be present, lest he be compelled to look upon her whom he held hated. The mother meanwhile with the friends cared for those things which the solemnity of the nuptials seemed to demand, raging within, flattering without. And although on account of the guests she strove to hide the poison of her ill will, yet the very countenance, which is the image of the mind and a certain silent speech of the mind, betrayed the secrets of her breast. After three days Bertulf returned home: and soon, his spouse being spurned, his household and his house being left, he migrated into his paternal house. So the spouse Godeleva, hateful to her spouse, but dear to Christ, resides at home, governs the household, exhibits herself irreprehensible, ever so studious of chastity, that even slanderous men could not feign anything sinister of her. She, lest she grow torpid by idleness, and languish with sloth and slackness, now drew threads, now wove, then indeed also bent to prayers. But that it might be fulfilled, which the Scripture says, He who is holy, let him be sanctified still: and he who is in filth, let him grow filthy still: Bertulf, putting no end to his malice, as being hard and criminal, and from a husband about to become a savage robber, was daily inflamed against the handmaid of Christ with atrocious hatred: and the counsel being shared with his mother, he set over her a certain home-born slave, who should serve her malignantly, and offer her a little bread, at a set hour. To whom also he severely forbade that he impart anything besides of food or drink to her, otherwise about to suffer dire penalties.

[3] Her wonderful patience; abstinence and commiseration toward the poor. The handmaid of Christ is therefore subjected to her servant, and is compelled to obey him whom it were just for her to command. She is harried with contumelies, injuries, reproaches, mockeries, nor yet is she moved to impatience, breaks not forth into complaints or murmurs: but with a tranquil heart her mind, well conscious to itself, bears all things moderately and placidly, as if she heard Christ saying to her: In your patience you shall possess your souls. She gives thanks to God for the bread given her, and that with an exulting mind: and takes half part of it herself with salt and water, gives the rest to the poor, for that very scantiness daily offering to the Lord hymns and canticles of praise. To her husband cursing she renders not curses, nay even blesses, and prays for those persecuting and calumniating her. But not even thus does Satan rest: for Bertulf, ever repaying her evils for goods, and hatred for love; when he saw that she was neither broken by hard and grievous things, nor consumed by hunger and fasting, became grievous to himself, and began to agitate many things concerning her murder with a bloody mind. But since he was not ignorant that she was sprung of a most noble family, he dared not openly threaten her with slaughter. But hoping that it would be, that, affected with greater molestations she should perish, and, roused by the stings of impatience, break forth into murmurings, he orders the half portion of the bread hitherto attributed to her to be withdrawn. But she, bearing that diminution of the allowance with a calm mind, although she saw that with difficulty could her life be sustained by so little a particle of bread, yet nonetheless decreed to render cheerfully that which she had once vowed to God. And so she bestows the middle part of the half of the bread on the poor, of the rest she herself lives in her manner, praying more instantly to the Lord, and saying: O thou God creator of all, be, I beseech, mindful of my frailty, nor forsake me in this my affliction. Thou who deliverest those who sustain thee, confirm me in the storm of this temptation: and although by my husband something be withdrawn from the daily portion of my victuals, thou nevertheless, not withdrawing from me the affect of thy benevolence and benignity, grant that I may ever please thee by the obsequy of pious devotion.

[4] But it is not to be pressed with silence, that so great grace was divinely conferred on Godeleva, Compelled by injuries, she flees to her parents. that not only those whom she had bound to herself by affability and familiarity, but even those who had her known by name alone, loved her. Moreover in so great cruelty Bertulf's own people favor him, and incite the cruel [man] against the humble woman, the savage and barbarous against the mild and innocent, who of his own accord already raged more than enough against the handmaid of Christ: and her whom by right, charity, and benevolence they ought to embrace, together with the criminal and wicked Bertulf, they persecute with hatred. She therefore, feeling so great a persecution of her husband and household, and so great a bitterness of minds toward her, is at last compelled to consult for herself by flight. With bare feet therefore, only one girl being taken as companion, she returns to her native soil, and recounts to her parents the history of her calamity with tears and groaning, setting forth to them in order what she had suffered from her husband and household. But the father, her daughter's complaints being heard, groans more deeply, and, the counsel being shared with friends, approaches Baldwin Count of Flanders, indicates to him what contumelies and injuries his daughter had suffered from her husband: asks aid from him, that what is just be decreed. But the Count remitted him to the Bishop, in whose diocese was his son-in-law. He was the Prelate of the church of Noyon, and at that time discharged his office well. For the Count said that that cause pertained to the ecclesiastical forum, and ought to be treated and dispatched nowhere else than before an ecclesiastical judge. But if his son-in-law would not obey the admonition of the Bishop, he promised that he would be a severe avenger, and would compel [him] to receive his spouse.

[5] So therefore Bertulf, both by the authority of the Prelate and by the power of the Count, Bertulf's specious promises, but empty. is compelled to receive his spouse. And he indeed promised, from fear of the prince, that he would treat her courteously and honorably, but, alas for grief, the last deeds of him were made worse than the first. For the mind is not drawn unwilling to love. He hated Godeleva equally as before, and could not see her without molestation. Thence now in his mind were fixed counsels of slaying her, yet so, that in every way he should bend to that care and thought, that in that manner he might be made master of his wish, that so great a crime could be conferred neither on himself, nor on any of his friends. But the spouse of Christ, discerning that Bertulf was made toward her nothing milder, but that to his pristine ferocity some increase too had accrued, with the whole affect of her heart cries to the Lord, that he, whom the winds and the sea obey, would convert that tempest into serenity. And when many, pitying her calamity, imprecated dire things on her husband Bertulf, and wished that vengeance be divinely taken on him, Godeleva reprehended them: Do not, she said, dearest ones, curse my husband, but rather bless [him]. For so by divine precept we are commanded, not only not to curse those cursing [us], but even to bless them and to do kindly; to pray for those persecuting and calumniating us, to conquer evil not in evil, but in good. And when many, out of a certain human commiseration, said that she alone was one who would enjoy neither the pleasures of the flesh, nor the delights of the world, with great constancy of mind she answered: I seek neither the pleasures of the flesh, nor the enticements of this world. But what of profit has it, to make the flesh about to die, and shortly to go into the dust, whence it was made, and into rottenness, flow with luxury and delights? She had indeed the gift of Doctrine conferred by God, so that she could egregiously exhort others: to which was added also the grace of prophecy. For when, as has been said, many called her, out of the inmost commiseration of mind, unhappy, she restrained them: Do not, she said, pour forth tears in vain, nor think me unhappy. For neither, as you feel, am I unhappy, although for the present affliction and straitness possess me: but before all the women of Flanders who today survive, I shall be exalted and raised on high. And this will do for me he who is mighty, who raises the crushed, and looses the fettered: heals the contrite of heart, and gladdens those affected with grief. Certain monks of consummate religion came to her for the cause of visitation, that they might confirm her with pious discourses, and with opportune consolation wipe away her tears. But they on the contrary testified that they had drawn from her mouth discourses of such sound doctrine and honey-flowing exhortation, that they doubted not at all that her mind was suffused with divine wisdom.

[6] Circumventing his wife with various guiles and feigned flatteries But Bertulf, when he perceived that all his machinations and arts for destroying her, God ordaining, were applied in vain, and that neither by hunger, nor by any other thing could he effect anything upon the holy Woman, disturbed in mind, revolved many things with himself: and, his two servants Lambert and Hacca being called to him, he opens to them the purpose of his mind, asks counsel from them, by what way Godeleva could be taken out of the way. They found a manner of extinguishing her, which should seem neither difficult, nor could easily be found out. They express also the time, in which the nefarious deed could be more secretly and conveniently perpetrated. Now the day had come, in which the virgin full of God should be manifested, and be crowned in heaven. On that very night therefore, in which by the fraud of the lost rascals she was to be slain, before the setting of the sun Bertulf came to her: and first indeed with feigned spirit he kisses and embraces her: with his mouth he lies a laugh, [he] who had poison in his breast: he sits then beside her, with countenance composed to a counterfeit cheerfulness. But Godeleva, out of reverence, as I judge, for her husband, fearing to join herself nearer to him, he draws to himself with his hand, and addresses with these words: Not

with mean grief does it affect me, that I seem to be of so fierce and over-hard a spirit toward thee, that neither is my presence a solace to thee, nor art thou delighted with my discourses, nor with mutual embrace. Indeed I know not what adverse chance has infested us, that I both was of alienated spirit toward thee, and seemed not sufficiently master of my mind. Unless I am deceived, this was effected by the work of the malignant demon: But now at last I wish to impose an end to these dissensions, and to cherish thee as a dear wife, and, hatred being by little and little routed, to be joined to thee in mind and body. O man more wicked than Judas the betrayer himself! I have found, he says, a woman, who boasts that she can so connect us with mutual love and benevolence, that no other two are joined together by a more ardent charity. I have committed this business to Lambert and Hacca my servants, who will bring the woman to thee: see that thou lend faith to them. But I wished for that reason to signify this to thee beforehand, that thou be not ignorant, and reject it not, or be troubled in mind.

[7] When the guileful and wicked man had said these things, she answered: he commits her to two impious servants to be strangled. I am the handmaid of Christ: to him I commend all my things. If nevertheless without the admixture of any crime that can be done which thou sayest, I do not gainsay. Then Bertulf, leaping up from the bench, mounted his horse, about to set out for Bruges, that he might spend the night there, and await the news of Godeleva extinguished; and at the same time, that he himself might be esteemed least of all conscious of her slaying. Then by night, all being oppressed with sleep, Lambert and Hacca rouse their lady. Arise, they say, mistress: for solicitous for thy cause we have come hither: we bring the woman of whom the master made mention to thee. Behold at the doors she awaits thy coming this long while. Arise quickly, be not wanting to thy own advantage. She first fortifies herself with the sign of the holy Cross, then commends herself wholly to God: and when she wished to clothe herself with garments, they stand by, that she do it not: With bare feet, they say, with spread hair, in a shift only thou shalt come. For so it is certain, that the thing will profit thee. For now at midnight and before the dawn this must be done. Soon she answered: Indeed I commit myself to almighty God: let that most clement [God] see what shall be of me: and now I deliver myself to your faith. So rising, she went away with them. But what once and again they either said or did to her, we judge unworthy of report. For it was frivolous, or rather fraud and guile. But when the third time they imposed on her in like manner, they cast a noose about her neck, and at once with their hands press her throat with all their force, lest she be able to utter any cries. But when they felt her now lifeless, they plunge [her] into the waters, that if perchance anything of life or breath survived, the waters might stifle it. This was done by the wonderful disposition of God, that if perchance any dusts from her earthly habitation had cleaved to her, the waters might wipe them off and cleanse them. Then those criminal murderers carried the extinguished body back to her little bed, and left [it] covered with garments. But the sun mounting higher, the household mutter among themselves, what is the cause, that the mistress comes not forth from her chamber. For she was wont to rise either before the dawn, or at the first rising of the dawn, and to admonish others, that they betake themselves to the church.

[8] At last one goes to her chamber, [she] is roused as if still sleeping, The burial of the Saint and the miraculous multiplication of flour. but dead she does not awake. Soon rumor flies, the neighbors run up, they contemplate the lifeless body, no wound, no trace of iron is found in the whole body. Only at the neck was seen a bloody circle, which had been left from the noose, with which the impious men had strangled her. Meanwhile some affirm that she died a natural death, others assert the contrary. But how dear her own held her, the very fact declared. For on the same day her burial was hastened: and because bread was lacking, which might be dispensed for the health of her soul, one went to buy grain, which certainly was for gain to the buyer himself. For it so increased, reduced into flour, that it exceeded measure and quantity, and the buyer marveled at the miracle, and gave thanks to God: Praise, he said, to thee, God. To thy honor she was liberal, but according to her power she studied to gratify the poor, while she lived: which indeed by this miracle thou hast divinely demonstrated.

[9] Various other miracles Moreover that part of the ground, where she was slain, was turned into white stones, that the Lord might show her merit, and her slaying might become known to all the faithful. Nay even when, out of devotion of mind toward the holy Woman, certain persons carried off some of that earth home with them, they afterward marveled that it was changed into gems. And lest anyone think this fabulous, I myself, who write these things, saw those gems with my eyes, and blessed the name of the Lord. Another element too, of water, the Lord egregiously illustrated, to the glory of his name, that through it too he might declare the merits of Godeleva there submerged. For as many as, vexed either with fevers, or afflicted with other diseases, coming there, drank that water, rejoiced that they had suddenly obtained the benefit of health by her merits. In the same manner too the sepulchre, and her sacred body, which was contained in it, the Lord marked with heavenly miracles. But we indeed shall note a few of many, that from them it may somehow be permitted to observe, in how great beatitude and glory in heaven the handmaid of Christ enjoys. A father brought his son, contracted from the first years of his birth, to her monument, praying that he might be healed by her merits. Not long after the contracted [boy] is raised up, and safe departs home with his father. The name of that boy was Algotus. Delivered thence to letters, when he had come to man's age, ascending little by little, he was ordained Deacon.

[10] and healings A certain contracted woman had lain at the doors of the monastery of St. Trudo for nine years, that she too could with the rest be restored to health. Meanwhile many were healed, several were raised up: she alone remained weak, the divine providence working this, that the merits of St. Godeleva might be diffused far and wide. At last the fame of the things which were done at her sepulchre being heard, she causes herself to be carried there, and there praying, awaits the mercy of the Lord, [and] a little after her contracted members are extended, and glad she returns home on her own feet. A certain [man] on the Sabbath day, at the hour when it was least lawful, was gathering ears in the field. But the ears cleaved to his hand so tenaciously, that by no means could he pluck them off. He labored indeed with his other hand, and greatly tried to draw them off, but all his labor was in vain: nay the more pains he put into removing them, so much the more firmly did they cleave to his hand. Understanding therefore his fault, he came to the sepulchre of blessed Godeleva, [and] prostrates himself on the ground. Not yet had he finished his prayers, and, his fingers extending themselves, the ears fell from his hand.

[11] at her sepulchre. A certain solemn day was approaching, which was held celebrated by the people. The priest, the sacrifice being performed, commanded that no one exercise any work on that day. A certain woman of that village, making little of that precept, was preparing a dye in a vessel, and, a rod being snatched up, wished to stir it. Soon the rod cleaves to each hand: the woman wrestles, now extending, now contracting her arms: but labors in vain. The matter is brought to the notice of others, the household flies up, nor do the neighbors wish to be absent, moved by the rumor of the miracle. And some indeed give their effort to wrench the rod from her hands, but others fear even to touch it. At last, the penalty compelling her, a suppliant she approaches the monument of blessed Godeleva, [and] by prayers courts her suffrages; amid tears and prayers the fingers and hands are freed from the rod, [and] the woman sound betakes herself to her own.

[12] In the year of Christ one thousand and eighty-eight the body of St. Godeleva was elevated ^b at Gistel by the Lord Ratbodo Bishop of Noyon and Tournai, The elevation of the sacred body. on the third of the Kalends of August. But the daughter of Bertulf by his second wife, since she was blind from birth, washing her eyes from the water where the holy woman of God was submerged, was illuminated, and there built a monastery of virgins, warring under the Rule of St. Benedict, to the honor of God and St. Godeleva, whose snowy gore, which flowed from her mouth and nostrils in the submersion, is preserved in the same monastery, for the perpetual memory of the matter and a sign of the virginity of the same holy woman of God.

ANNOTATA.

THE OTHER, MORE AUGMENTED LIFE,

Described by the Anonymous of Gistel.

Never hitherto published in Latin.

Godeleva, Virgin Martyr, at Gistel in Flanders (S.)

BHL Number: 3593

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.

PROLOGUE.

Godeleva, a virgin dear to God, of illustrious lineage, drew her origin from the territory of Boulogne, the castle of Londefort, near the village of Wierre of Huifrid. Her father [was] a soldier, Heinfrid by name, but her mother Ogena, both noble by race, but nobler by virtues, begot this happy offspring, like a most bright star, for this dark age, in the time of Leo IX, the Roman Pontiff, namely in the year from the Lord's Incarnation 1052, which was the twelfth year of Henry ^a the Emperor the third, but the twenty-first of Philip the first of that name King of France, and the seventeenth of Baldwin of Lille, who was called the Benign, seventh Count of Flanders. But this Heinfrid, although he had begotten also two other devout daughters of the same Ogena, of whom the first obtained the name of her mother, but the second was called Adele, yet the life of the Martyr Godeleva alone we shall for the present pursue in brief discourse. Since indeed to explain more fully all the illustrious works and miracles of her sanctity, neither would the narrowness of the day permit, nor is the slenderness of our discourse able: chiefly since the time devouring of things, and antiquity consuming even stones, has consumed by oblivion so many things now vitiated by devouring ^b teeth, that the memory of them, now more obscure by the years, has well-nigh taken away the faculty of narrating. Yet from the several things, which either Drogo left, first writer of the Virgin's life, or which the truthful report ^c of approved [men] taught, or at least, though very few, to which probable conjecture assents, gathering some, in a succinct and common style, to the praise of Almighty God, and the honor of his Virgin and Martyr Godeleva running through, we shall labor to flee prolixity, the mother of tedium.

ANNOTATA.

CAPUT I.

The stupendous mercy of the Saint toward the poor, to whom while she indulges too much, carrying off food secretly, being detected by the steward, she confounds the man by a manifest miracle.

From her tender [years plainly prodigal toward the poor,] Blessed Godeleva therefore in her girlish years was of a comely form, of graceful and beautiful face, but more beautiful in faith: in age indeed she seemed a young girl, but of her senses she had a venerable hoariness. But instructed by her parents in holy morals, she was prevented with so copious a sweetness of divine benediction, that while still under tender years, now leading a celibate life, the germs of all virtues seemed to sprout in her, and her holy infancy breathed manifest preludes of future sanctification. Nor a wonder; for from the beginnings of her primeval age she studied so to give leisure to the works of mercy, that often from those things which had been given her for food, taking away the necessaries of her own body, sometimes by a pious theft withdrawing a part from her paternal banquets, she refreshed the want of the poor. But there was then a certain noble [man], whom the Virgin's father had set over his house as steward; he, when frequently at the hour of refreshment finding all the abundance of victuals carried off, after diligent inquiry, had found Godeleva guilty of this deed, much troubled, watchfully observed her, that, detected in the act, he might deliver her to her father with an inexcusable excuse to be punished. Whence it happened, that as blessed Godeleva bore her bosom filled with victuals, and hastened to refresh the poor, on a certain day the steward met her, who, rebuking her with hard words for the temerity of her presumption, would have led her to her father to be chidden, unless the virgin had mitigated the rigor of that overseer by a humble and reasonable excuse.

[2] Nevertheless he had already conceived in his heart to intimate the girl's insolence to her father at an opportune time. Wherefore not much after in time, reported to her father, she is chidden by him: Heinfrid holding discourse with the steward on the government of the court, the steward brought forth the iniquity which he had conceived in mind, saying: If, Lord, thou wilt release me from the care of thy house, and take me from thy service, thou wilt do me a grateful thing at all events, in that ocular experience has frequently taught me, that this thy daughter Godeleva, by the incessant dissipation of thy goods, causes my office to labor under inexpiable infamy. And truly unless thou curb her rash audacity with the bridle of due punishment, it must at some time turn to a fatal loss for thee. Hearing these things the egregious soldier admonished the man of patience, and, promising that he would make provision, somehow settled his troubled mind. But blessed Godeleva by chance perhaps was then making her way there, whom the father, called to himself, examining concerning the complaint, seriously chid. But she conscious, since a soft answer breaks wrath, out of reverence for her father modest, as she was of humble countenance, while she cleared herself by excuse, the mind of the angered father cooled a little; yet he ordered her thenceforth, the wonted custom of the court being preserved, to abstain from this prodigal distribution of alms.

[3] By which command of her parent the young girl, wounded as it were in her pious heart, but this being sweetly appeased, showing herself an advocate against the impiety i.e. harshness toward the poor, instigated from heaven, labored to promote their cause by reasonable allegation: and, the unction of the Holy Spirit teaching, to plead by evident testimonies, of how great merit alms is held with God, by which sin, as fire by water, is extinguished; from this, that by the Evangelical attestation the whole weight of the tremendous judgment seems to be weighed from it: since indeed by the right of heaven it is established that all things are common, but from the forensic forum the wicked love of property has emerged. If therefore anyone have the substance of this world, and see his brother suffering need, and shut up his bowels toward him; behold judgment without mercy to him who has not remembered to do mercy. Whereas on the contrary largess is medicine to sick minds, confers morals, hides vice, augments race, subdues the enemy; for there is no need of a rampart for those whom a bountiful right hand surrounds. To these many like things, which she had learned by the attentive hearing of the word of God, this pleader of the wretched, with how elegant a persuasion, the divine grace aiding, she would pursue them, if it had been permitted to hear, thou couldst have supposed that Godeleva had received the eloquence of that legal wise woman of Tekoa.

[4] Whereby it happened, that the affect of the paternal heart, already growing cold from pity, more fervently indulging in works of mercy, the vital warmths of charity being roused, this blessed Shunammite so inflamed to compassion for the needy, that, giving free assent to his daughter's devotion, he assigned a notable quantity of goods for relieving their wants. Which the Virgin dear to God, rejoicing in heart, receiving, so devoted herself wholly to the services of the beggars, that she even seemed to wish to impart her own bowels to them, if she could. Whereby it came to pass, that while she flowed to the poor with full affections, on a certain day exceeding the limits of her father's command, a copious quantity of precious viands being placed in her bosom, she turned aside to refresh the poor. Which matter, not hidden from that perverse steward, keeping impious watches, he now judged that he had found an occasion for sating his cruelty, in that he esteemed that to her, detected in the act, no veil of excuse was left. By an unexpected meeting therefore made to face the Virgin, when he had affected her with a biting reproach, we believe that the holy woman answered him words of this kind. Angered, beloved Lord, do not contend over an uncertain thing; nay rather be peaceable, flee quarrels; for the bonds of peace are the heavenly pasture of the soul. White peace becomes men, fierce wrath becomes wild beasts. Thou shalt not, said he, presume that thou wilt have peace, until, presented to thy father, thou pay penalties worthy of thy temerity.

[5] the food being changed into pieces of wood, But the devout young girl, greatly fearing the offense of her begetter, suddenly fled to the consoler Jesus, knowing that he is near to those who are of a troubled heart, and with her eyes intent on heaven, she bedewed with tears her cheeks suffused with a rosy color; with panting heart earnestly imploring that he would be propitious to her in this necessity, who divided the confused mass of nature into the first kinds of things through manifold species. A wonder indeed! forthwith she herself, who copiously trusted in the immensity of the divine commiseration, feeling herself heard, turned to the man: Lay aside, she said, dearest, thy wrath, and forsake fury, for I carry not food, but a few faggots of wood to be dispensed: and her bosom being soon unlocked, by an unheard-of and new miracle of heavenly condescension, what had truly been food, changed into pieces of wood we have received. Which that wicked rival of piety beholding, seized at once with amazement and ecstasy, a cold sweat flowed over his whole body; and blushing that he had labored superfluously against her, whose just help was from the Lord, he who a little before raged like a lion against the girl, by this change of the right hand of the Most High, like a lamb tamed, is rolled prostrate with his whole body at the Virgin's feet upon the ground, and moistening his face with great drops, acknowledged his fault, asks pardon, and promised amends.

[6] she escapes punishment by a manifest miracle. Whom the humble Godeleva, reverently lifted from the earth, cherishing with bland address, affirmed that this prodigy of the heavenly operation was by no means to be ascribed to her own merits, but to the condescension ^a of the divine commiseration, which, for his correction, preventing him with so ineffable a sign of grace, deigned to illustrate the blindness of his mind. O this preelect and truly holy little maiden, whose still tender beginnings of age that Advocate of the heavens deigned to declare would be of so great sanctity, that, the species of things being changed, he intimated that the consolation of his condescension was wanting to his beloved not even in the least things. Namely that soldierly virgin herself, now adorned with the gems of virtues, resplendent with the beauty of many charisms, like that typical Esther most beautiful in form, gracious to the divine sight, provoking the affect of the highest King to desire of her, had by pious desires made him consenting with a prompt propitiation. Nevertheless by no means the young girl herself, from so great a condescension of almighty God, elated to human glory, [but] altogether determining that the sacrament of the King must be concealed, ordered the man not to tell anyone what had been done. But he, judging that a portent of so great novelty must by no means be concealed from her parents, roused their pious minds at once to praises and tears, for the benefit of the heavenly grace. Finally that admiration too was added, it is not to be passed over in silence, that the very aliments, which for confounding the wickedness of the impious steward had passed into remnants of wood, by a doubled sign, for refreshing the misery of the beggars, were recalled into their former species, which therefore, she executing what she had begun, the poor still awaiting in an opportune place, with a compassionate heart, as is her wont, were imparted in alms ^b.

ANNOTATA.

CAPUT II.

By a greater prodigy she divinely restored the viands, filched and distributed to the poor, which had been prepared for receiving the Count of Boulogne.

At nearly the same times we have learned, by the report of truthful [men], it happened, that the Count of the people of Boulogne ^a, The Count of Boulogne being invited by her parent, not unaware that wisdom serves in all things, on account of some arduous counsel convoked his vassals; among whom was present also the lord Heinfrid, an egregious soldier, father of the virgin Godeleva. But while they treated of the doubtful matters, and the business being at last decided, each preparing to return to their own, the noble Heinfrid, urging the Count's majesty with desire, invited [him] with earnest prayer to visit the threshold of his little abode ^b. To whom he, out of reverence for the man, giving assent, promises that on a set day, life surviving, he would come. The soldier went glad to his own, and, rendering his wife the gladder for the Count's condescending promise, meanwhile with solicitous mind weighed things worthy of so great a condescension. With many expenses of money therefore and labors of men, copious viands of wild birds and of game and domestic beasts are sought out: nor could it be thought that, of those things which could be eaten, if indeed that could be found on earth, which he did not procure. Of wine what shall I report? If that region could have anything choice, I would not believe it was wanting.

[8] while most sumptuous viands are prepared, The awaited day of feasting therefore was at hand; there runs up one who announces that the Count is at the gates, forthwith the war-horses ^c are led out, and, girt with palfreys, with proud steeds, with bridles foaming, adorned with gold and purple, surrounded by a troop of honorable [men], Heinfrid is made to meet the comer, and, having urbanely received [him], with great triumph leads [him] into the palace of his habitation. There is in the hall of the soldiers immense joy, the inner house splendid with soldierly luxury is furnished, and prepares banquets in the midst of the roofs; some asserting that these things were done as preludes to the betrothal of Godeleva. Nor can it easily be uttered

what dances of noble ladies there were, what joys of all: the timbrels resounded, the organs clashed, and, amid swift finger-work, with broken notes the lute ^d and the pipes soothed the hearing. Meanwhile with accurate diligence are cooked numerous viands, about to please the palate; the birds are turned on spits, and the dishes of dry breast are seasoned with hostile pepper. Now the fiery sun had mounted the mid orb of heaven, the storerooms of the rich overflowed with manifold viands, belching from this into that, and the whole house abounded with the delights of precious meats.

[9] St. Godeleva carries off most of the dishes to the poor: But the famished crowd of beggars already clamored at the gate, desiring that they could be sated at least with the crumbs which fell from the tables. Perhaps the abundance of so great a banquet was not hidden from those who, hoping highly of Godeleva's wonted piety, esteemed not that they would be driven away thence void of refreshment. Not yet had the guests, about to dine, sat down, the servants indeed being occupied at some game I know not what outside the kitchen, when the pious Godeleva, hungering not for carnal, but for spiritual food, which the lovers of the world knew not, compassionating with all her bowels the cries of the needy, as if an opportunity being had, ordered some of them, laden with choice noble aliments, to go before to the gate of the castle, and, following straightway herself, admonished the poor, copiously refreshed, to depart quickly, knowing how much trouble this very carrying-off of the dishes ought to bring. Yet she, who had already fixed her heart in the love of the eternal Father, feared no sadness, and willingly tolerated hard things, herself hoping for lofty things.

[10] who, being grievously chidden for this, The hour of reclining therefore being come, the Count with his nobles fitted themselves to recline: the servants run up, about to bring in the precious varieties of viands, the vessels being opened. But the little dishes and storerooms being found empty, with how great a whirlwind of confusion all things there were shaken, no one would believe, who had not seen [it] with his eyes. Since indeed the blessed young girl now confessing of her own accord that she had carried off all these things, the matter being reported to her father with importunate clamors, it happened, that, her being called to him, he addressed [her] in this manner: Alas for me! he said, foolish my daughter, of how great disgrace hast thou today raised an occasion for me! O the wickedness of incredible audacity, nay of madness; the food, which, sought out with so great expenses and labors, with most precious cookings I fitted at this hour for the refreshment of the nobles, distributed to vile persons, thou hast carried off, to the indelible infamy of our whole race. Dost thou not understand with how great affect my Lord the Count, with his nobles, has deigned to turn aside to us; nor considerest that I ought not to be ungrateful to so great a condescension of his? O most wicked presumption! behold now by thy detestable temerity thou hast rendered me liable to inexpiable ignominy, and notable with everlasting reproach. This may the Lord do to me and these things add, if I do not today worthily deliver thee, accused of so great a crime, to the Count to be punished.

[11] To whom Godeleva, answering with a humble excuse, as is her wont; humbly excusing herself, dread, she said, father, so far as I take it, saving thy grace, there is no reason for so great an offense to thee: for I considered that these nobles, not for the cause of greedy feasting, which could have been daily to them, but at all events out of the affect of singular favor, so that a sober refreshment altogether suffices them, turned aside to our home. But this crowd of the poor and weak labored under so great a necessity of want, that easily, unless piety had succored, they might have failed. Truly it becomes us not to use fat things, while Christ hungers in his members. By no means therefore did I judge that I derogated from thee, feeding him with thy aliments, who ordered that to be ministered to himself in the wretched. For this indeed, unless I am deceived, is that mercy, by which, the prophetic word attesting, [one] shall be built up in heaven; just as we read that Thomas the Apostle, for the King of the Indians, built not a house of this creation made by hand, but an eternal one preserved in glory: of which we believe it was said: Blessed are they who dwell in thy house, O Lord, in the ages of ages they shall praise thee. Casting therefore all hope on him who says: First seek the kingdom of God, and all other things shall be added to you, make the men recline, I know with firm confidence that it will be, a sufficient abundance of foods being supplied, that all occasion of shame will be taken from thee. At these things the Virgin's father, inflamed with a greater trouble, inasmuch as he had no hope of the divine condescension to come, affected her with a sharper reproach of words.

[12] Feeling therefore, the blessed Godeleva, her begetter's wrath now roused nearly implacable against her, and fleeing to God, she enters into her bedchamber, and the door being closed upon her, rolled on the ground, stretching her suppliant palms to the stars, with fervid tears flowing from the bottom of her heart, prays the heavenly Father in secret, saying: O most clement Lord Jesus Christ, father of mercies and God of all consolation, helper of the poor in opportunity, who fedst Israel, given drink by water led forth from the rock, with the bread of heaven in the desert, and refreshedst the prophet Daniel with the food of Habakkuk, and finally, water being changed into wine, gladdenedst the nuptial guests; and at last with a few loaves didst wish to refresh many thousands of men by compassionate condescension, inclining the ears of thy wonted commiseration to my prayers, renew signs, change marvels, and, averting the imminent ignominy of my father, render him appeased toward me thy unworthy handmaid. O Christ, thou alone my hope, my love, my refuge, and my only consolation; but nevertheless if the reckoning of thy ineffable providence shall have decreed otherwise, thy will be done.

[13] by a new miracle she restores all things; And without delay, as we are taught by the truthful word of Wisdom; the prayer of him who humbles himself penetrated the clouds, and departed not, until the Most High heard it. For against the faith and hope of all, whose faces the perils of so great a matter had confounded with blushing; suddenly there appeared a copious multitude of precious dishes, and cooked with so artificial a composition, that hitherto the like are read to be found nowhere; nor would I easily believe that at the magnificent banquet of that most powerful King Ahasuerus such precious kinds of viands were present ^e. Forthwith the hearts of the mourners are cheered, and, joy occupying the end of grief, in emulation the banquets are set up, and, the troops being invited to the sitting, who are present of noble persons, the servants give water to the hands, and, with this and that vessel, laden with those bringing in the food, they heaped the tables with platters. Wine was set forth abundant and choice, and, those drinking from golden cups, glad they set out the bowls and crown the wines. The din goes to the roofs, and the voices of gladness roll through the heights.

[14] the guests being struck with amazement, The egregious soldier Heinfrid, exhibiting to all the grateful hospitality of his cheerful presence, joy was heaped upon joy for the banqueters: for he knew, that a generous brow ennobles even vile viands, and that the honor of the brow makes the banquet more than the viand. As they feasted therefore; they marveled that they had never found foods of such sweetness in smell, and delight in taste, and had seen them abounding of so great magnificence. O admirable, ancient indeed, but now in our time renewed by Godeleva's merits, miracle! O holy young girl of lofty merit, to the nod of whose prayers the immense majesty of God, inclined, deigned to obey! that, a few aliments being so multiplied, all being sated, the hands of the server took away more from the tables than they had set on. Although many, whose minds the care of secular matters had more abundantly occupied, felt these things not at all, yet there were several, in whom a sounder mind was, considering the unexpected event of so great novelty, who without doubt ascribed to the merits of the blessed virgin Godeleva the sign which had been done. But after hunger was taken away by the viands and the tables were removed, each now preparing to return to their own, the Count tarrying within, they look back to the threshold waiting on the first [man] of the people of Boulogne. There stands the steed notable with purple and gold, and fierce champs its foaming bridle.

[15] and the Count wonderfully praising the Saint, But he desired to see face to face with his eyes the virgin Godeleva, of whom he had learned many proclamations of her virtues; her father therefore commanding, suddenly led by the servants, in simple habit, with humble gesture, modest face, moderate in morals, she reverently saluted the Count. Whom he, lifted from the ground, cherishing round about with an honorable embrace, fitted for her also a place of sitting beside himself. But she humbly resisting, asserted that she wished most benevolently to lend her ear to the will of his mouth. To whom the Count, Godeleva, he said, most beloved daughter, since thou art the daughter of so great a man, our cordial friend, rejoicing from our inmost heart at thy welfare, we ever wish thee prosperous successes of life. Being therefore in the first flowers of youth, I counsel thee, since thou art now marriageable to a man in full years, lest it happen that thy paternal inheritance devolve to strangers, to fit thyself to the conjugal state by the counsel of friends. But if it shall have seemed good to thee, so far as I am able, our defenses will never be wanting to thy felicity. To these things the holy Virgin, after she had rendered becoming thanks to the Count for his favor, with cast-down countenance, and eyes fixed on the ground, speaking with humble voice, in elegant discourse pursues the fruit both of the virginal and of the conjugal state: and preferring the virginal by nobility and by richness of merits, she now trusted that she could be bound by its laws, grace assisting, unless by the inevitable counsel of her parents another course were persuaded. The bystanders were astounded at the Virgin's prudence, and by no means daring to dissent from her chaste and devout desires, after a little, farewell being said to her father Heinfrid, they departed to their own.

[16] Plainly from these things it can be gathered by evident consideration, with how great perfection and holiness the manner of life of blessed Godeleva began; whose merits are weighed. who, ever a lover of inviolate chastity, though by the more inclined counsel of God, that so great an exemplar of patience might be given to posterity, was subdued to the laws of wedlock; yet nonetheless soon repudiated by her husband out of spite, the divine dispensation and grace favoring her chaste vows, while, desiring, like a precious pearl, from the beginnings of her first youth, all things being sold, to acquire her self, he rejoices that she was preserved in herself inviolate and most free ^f unto the end, she is by no means to be believed to lack the reward of virginity for the devotion of it ^g.

ANNOTATA.

CAPUT III.

The virgin, sought in marriage by many, Bertulf the Fleming obtains, who in the very nuptial banquet, his impious mother instigating, most basely deserts his bride.

The fame of St. Godeleva spread far and wide, The Count of Boulogne therefore, as was before touched, returning home by the way by which he had come, in every place through which he had to pass, all discourse was heard of him concerning the magnificent apparatus of the banquet of the egregious soldier Heinfrid, and the elegance and modesty of the morals of his noble daughter: how incomparable he was of courtliness and liberality, but she how sweet in aspect, how gracious in gait, how prudent in sense, how bland in speech, how lovable in name, how she seemed by omen to have obtained the appellation of Godeleva, that is, "Dear to God," inasmuch as she abounded, singularly endowed by her Beloved with so great gifts of charisms. This fame flying around and widely through the cities, very many of the nobles, induced, labored to join friendships with Heinfrid, and to seek his daughter in marriage; namely because, tall ^a in stature, and comely in countenance, she seemed so grateful to the sights of all, that, only seen, she brought to hearts a continual matter of exultation. Now the opinion of this young girl had filled Flanders too; whereby it happened, that a certain noble of that region, soon kindling with vehement affect into love of the Virgin, surrounded by a pompous company of attendants, betook himself to the castle of Londefort, who, addressing the soldier's ears concerning the betrothal of his daughter, meanwhile also tried to soothe the blessed maiden with familiar and amorous colloquy.

[18] chief among the suitors Bertulf the Fleming And while he had surveyed the face and eyes of the girl and her whole soft body with his gaze, drawing poison with lascivious eyes, he feeds the wound in his veins and is consumed by a blind fire. But shortly repulsed by the answer of her who had thought to take to herself a heavenly Spouse, while he was pricked by ampler stings of that love, and fed his mind with a flaming heat, offering most precious things, and promising much ampler, he implores the aid of her father, who, not ignorant of his daughter's devotion, repaying returns of thanks for the honesty offered to the man, indicated that he strove with vain labor, and that he would not violate the Virgin's so salutary and so holy purpose. Which answer being received, Bertulf, vehemently saddened, departs indeed in body; yet the sweet countenance of the Virgin, her eminent virtue, the modesty of her morals, her gracious words, seasoned with the salt of wisdom, while they cleave fixed to his breast; that fiery fury knew not to have measure, and revolving very many things in his mind, he drew sleepless nights, and dividing his mind now hither, now thither, snatches [it] into various parts, what in this matter he needed to do. His ingenious love found at last that it would be opportune, in so great a business to approach the presence of the Count of Flanders, Baldwin the Peaceful ^b, son of the former, who had been called the Benign, since indeed, being his kinsman, he trusted that by his patronage he could attain what he burned for with the flaming heat of his heart's desire.

[19] To the Count therefore, found by chance in a certain place, having suffered a repulse, he implores the patronage of the Count. he uncovered the wound which lay hidden in his mind, and, laying open to the Virgin Godeleva the magnitude of his affect, requesting for the attainment of so just a petition the assistance of his condescension: to whom Baldwin, inasmuch as he too was mild by nature, giving the pious assent of his favor, promises that he would take the occasion of accomplishing what he asked. Some days afterward therefore, arduous causes being imminent, the vassals and nobles of Flanders being gathered by the Count's mandate, counsel was held on the highest affairs of the province. There were present for that time both the Count of the people of Boulogne and Heinfrid, the noble soldier, present too was Bertulf, girt with magnificent apparatus: whereby it happened, that when the chief matters had been dispatched, Baldwin the peaceful, not forgetful of his promise, as if opportunity being now got, with the nobles standing by, asserted that the virgin Godeleva was loved by a certain noble and very rich man of his blood ^c, and was vehemently and instantly sought in lawful marriage, [and] that if her parents should deem it right to lend prompt assent, they would do a grateful thing to his majesty, and a most salutary thing for their daughter's successes.

[20] Indeed since no one doubted that Bertulf, who was commended, would be the man, By which and other [things impelling, he obtains the Virgin;] the father with constant refusal objecting his daughter's holy purpose of celibacy, by many requests of the nobles and gentlemen it was at last scarcely admitted, that on an appointed day, in the presence of the Count of Boulogne, whom Bertulf had chosen for himself as helper in the business, some chief special friends being convoked, there should be treatment upon a marriage of this kind. Which when it was done, after the manifold refusal of the father, and the resistance ^d of the young girl Godeleva, as constant as it was simply requested, the parents induced by so great persuasions, especially that they now seemed nearly compelled, the parents indeed by fear, but the Virgin by the counsels of so many wise and upright [men], overcome as by a more evident sign of the divine will concerning herself, humbly yielding, the marriage was confirmed by the mutual giving of faith. Then Bertulf, repaying copious returns of thanks to the nobles, the day of the nuptials being assigned, leading his bride, taken, with festive dress into Flanders, many noble persons of divers parts convening there into one, with splendid and ambitious luxury and ineffable pleasantness of the banquets the solemnities were begun, in the fifteenth year ^e of the Virgin's age, but in the first year of the county of the aforesaid Baldwin the Peaceful, eighth Count of Flanders.

[21] But the set days of the banquet not yet being fulfilled, but his most wicked mother behold the nuptials were turned into mourning, and the voice of the musicians into lamentation; for the mother of Bertulf, a litigious and most wicked woman, as soon as she beheld the bride, hated her with most wicked hatred, although receiving her first with cheerful countenance, she had hidden the poison of envy in the depth of her mind. But evening being made, when the falling stars ^f persuaded sleep, those who had convened preparing to cherish their wearied limbs with rest, the most devout Bride herself in the midst of the noble young girl timbrel-players, the musicians alternating with sweet-sounding modes, and mixing songs with artificial consonance, sang in her heart to the Lord, saying: Let my heart and my body, O Lord, be immaculate, that I be not confounded: for with all her desires seeking and savoring the things which are above, all the things which were done upon the earth were made losses to her. According to custom therefore the ornaments of her garments being laid aside, she was of a comely face indeed, for as if one should stain Indian ivory with bloody purple, or a reddening rose mixed among white lilies, such colors did the virgin give with her face; yet by nature black hair was displayed to her; namely whose whole study hitherto had been, the body being neglected, rather by spiritual cultivation to exhibit the inner man, a chaste virgin, to Christ.

[22] Calling the Saint a crow, Whom when the mother of the bridegroom, a plainly malicious woman, had beheld, incited by the indignation of vehement spite, the eyes of the neighboring women being turned by nod and gesture toward Godeleva, as though she were contemptible and deformed with notable unseemliness, insulting she jeered, and, more truculent than a most cruel beast, assailed her son with these words: Couldst thou not, she said, have found crows in these lands for thy consolation, unless thou broughtest this one from elsewhere? Truly it derogates from thy noble lineage and prejudices [it] with everlasting reproach, to defile the births of thy high blood with the marriage of so deformed a little fool: cursed, I say, be her entrance into this house, by which thou hast affected me with so great sadness, that it repents [me] even to have borne thee. By which speech of impiety a lethal poison is instilled into Bertulf's ears, and into his mind, as tow kindled by fire, from the midst of her mouth, as from a corrupt vessel, the poison of spite is transfused into her son's mind. Nor a wonder, since by the sentence of James, the tongue is described as fire; and by the testimony of Paul, evil colloquies corrupt good morals. Wherefore he himself, deploring the deeds of the unhappy marriage with deep sighs and frequent sobs, weighed many things with his mother in various discourse; and feeling that no reason of a just divorce was at hand, turned his mind into all parts, if any remedies fit for his consolation could be found.

[23] she inflames her son's mind against her; To whom at last we have learned that the malicious old woman, instigated by the spirit of wickedness, suggested words of this kind. Soon, she said, departing, withdraw thy presence for all time: at all events to those friends of this girl who are present I will so exhibit myself intolerable, that when they perceive thee absent, wearied by the tedium of our immodesty, suspecting that their daughter is being unbecomingly treated, hastening their departure, they will perhaps try to lead [her] away with them together; but meanwhile certainly if they leave her in the hands of our faith, at least imposing an end to those expenses of the nuptials, when they have departed, I will take care that she be at once wasted with such straits, that, forestalled by death, she may give way to new marriages worthy of thy nobility. Plainly the unheard-of madness of this woman, and the too-to-be-dreaded wickedness of all malice. This at all events is that woman, whose type the Wise [man] once depicted with presaging heart, saying: A jealous woman is a grief of the heart and a mourning and a scourge of the tongue; who holds her, is as one who grasps a scorpion; brief is all wickedness beside her wickedness; the wrath and irreverence of such a woman [is] a great confusion; for her wickedness changes her face and blinds her countenance like a bear, and shows [it] like sackcloth in the midst of her neighbors.

[24] Nevertheless the unhappy Bertulf, more fully confirmed by his vows in the counsels of so great impiety and folly, and she, he being sent away, presides at the sad nuptials. departed by night on horseback; namely reason growing foolish in him, his mind, loosing the reins to spite, rushes into every crime, and the depravity of the stepmother rejoices to rage against the afflicted woman. Meanwhile the sun slips, and black night took away color from things: now placid breasts wearied plucked slumber, while the stars are rolled in their mid course, when all the field is silent, the flocks and the painted birds; behold the mother of Bertulf, snatching her limbs from the couch, with unkempt head, foaming at the mouth after the manner of a boar ^g, running to and fro through the court with importunate and horrendous clamors, urged on the crowd of servants and handmaids to work, and to some imprecating everlasting sleep, to others reviling ^h with detestable contumelies, to others too, while she threatened blows, blushing at her savage insolence: the persons of the nobles who were present, now roused by her din, marveled not a little; and, the day being risen, when the first [day] surveyed the lands with its first lamp, seeking the bridegroom's presence, she either confounded them with a biting word, or mocked them with a fallacious speech; saying that he had gone on pilgrimage to the reverence of the Mother of God, that, showing himself propitious to his bride, he might deign to grant offspring happy in successes. To which vow indeed, how much soever it ought forthwith to have been satisfied, lest, hindered by the asking of the friends, he be accused of the crime, he himself secretly departed: which allegation of excuse suspecting to be frivolous and fictitious, when the hope of their expectation was totally eluded, after a little, honorably bidding farewell to his daughter, and to those who were present, each returned to their own.

ANNOTATA.

esteemed that she was of a very slight stature of body: which the spine of the back, he says, lately seen by me at the Prelate of Ghent, Antonius Triest, taken from her sacred body … sufficiently declares.

CAPUT IV.

The mother-in-law, continuing to rage, treats the holy woman most unworthily, and by calumnies and lies tries to render her son implacable toward her.

Most unworthily treated by her mother-in-law The young girl Godeleva therefore being left alone among the unknown hands of sinners, like a little sheep among most savage wolves, manifestly foreseeing from those things which she had already experienced the straitness of the tribulation impending over her, groaning more secretly, moistens her face with a large stream; yet with her mind ever fixed in the Lord, conforming herself to the divine wills, she dissembled her sadness with a gladder brow. Fully, when her acquaintance were not yet far removed from her, her mother-in-law brings her back, affected with the hard sharpnesses of words, commanding ^a all the gifts, the money, together with the jewels, which had come on occasion of the nuptials, to be restored to her. To which the pious young girl, showing herself voluntary of her own accord, inasmuch as she had by no means determined to go after gold, nor hoped in the treasures of money, despising that muddy and fallen substance as vile, like dust, transfuses [it] with all promptitude into the lap of the demander. Which when the old woman had received, assigning to the Virgin a certain narrow little chamber, [she] remaining there without the noble governance of the family affairs, ordered a portion of aliment to be daily ministered by one of the maidservants; since indeed she had deputed the same to her as a companion through the nights, not out of reverence for her person, but for the honesty of the world.

[26] she strengthens her mind with fervid prayers, In this house therefore the virgin Godeleva, now dead to the world, as buried in a tomb, although daily harried with various revilings, and continually affected with hard contumelies, yet ever fixed with the most firm anchor of patience, was not seen to have swerved even a little from the limit of virtue, nor, according to the Wise [man], did she idle eat her bread, but there raised above earthly solicitude, now with the free foot of her mind she went about the chosen tabernacles of the heavenly mansions, running into the odor of the heavenly ointments; now recommending to the Lord by prayers and supplications her own and the whole Church's salvation, she was borne into God by continual affects of devotion, and, as if having got a more secret closet, now she answered the judge, now supplicated the father, now played with the spouse, now conversed with friends, now offered immense thanks to God, who granted that she, called from the perils of delights to the security of tribulations, should be made conformable to the image of his only-begotten Son; knowing, taught by the unction of the Holy Spirit, that as the passions of Christ abound in us, so also the consolations; and if we suffer together, we shall also reign together.

[27] Conformable to Christ this blessed Virgin was made, and divides the small little portion of bread with the poor. when, received within her spouse's palace with joy, like the Lord received at Jerusalem with palms, the straits of reproaches following on her heels, she is without cause affected with ignominious insults. Moreover among the banquets of the nuptials, as the disciples applauded Christ at the supper, a crowd of noble friends applauded Godeleva, yet the solemnities of the banquets not yet fulfilled, like Peter, confounded by the words of one little woman, departing, they left her to be afflicted by the hands of the wicked. But the pious young girl, feeling that prophetic word said to her by an eternal address; Forget, daughter, thy people, and the house of thy father, for the King has desired thy beauty; ever strengthened in heart in the Lord, confidently said: My father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord has taken me up. Putting therefore her hand to strong things, it was now to her to die a gain, but to live Christ. For while she esteemed it most grateful to minister to the wretched, although the little portion of bread and water daily indulged her was so scanty, that it was believed to irritate rather than allay hunger, yet continually her hand, as much as it availed, she gave to the needy, and extended her palms to the poor. Which when it was reported to her mother-in-law, that old woman of abundant malice so diminished the sober refreshment which she had deputed to her, that by no means could it have sufficed for human sustenance: yet the Virgin, strengthened from heaven, by no means omitting her wonted piety, chose rather to take away from her little body what she needed, than not to refresh the wretched who hungered; not ignorant of the document of Tobit to his son, saying: If thou hast much, give abundantly; if little, impart even that willingly: for thou wilt treasure up a good reward for thyself in the day of necessity.

[28] But after several days, Bertulf being returned home, Bertulf, more inflamed by his mother's lies, and holding discourse with his mother upon the things which had been done, namely of the end of the nuptials, and the departure of the nobles of Boulogne, great lies were persuaded to him by her. And indeed at last scarcely, not without a motion of indignation, to him inquiring concerning Godeleva what was being done, the mother thus answers: If, she said, thou seekest that deformed fool, behold there in the little chamber she skulks most slothful, neither fit for work, nor apt for governance, nor worthy of dominion: it is not easy to say, how greatly, before the departure of the friends, her deeds troubled us; for so far did she riot with her insolence against the servants, that of the household no one can minister to her. The unhappy son believed the assertions of his envious mother, and the wrath of his indignation was kindled like fire. Which although the maidservant ^b, who had been deputed as guardian to the blessed young girl, had considered, yet she deemed it more useful to promote good than to give occasion to evil: she therefore admonished the holy Virgin, Bertulf being now returned home, to offer a humble obsequy of salutation with the meeting of a bland aspect; for sweet eloquence rouses love, and, soothing minds, it mitigates the fierce: whereby at last, occasion being taken, declaring her innocence, she might be able to clear herself of the imputed lies.

[29] He refuses to see the Saint: But if, she said, bearing reproaches thou suffer worse, thou hast a consoler in the Lord Jesus, who, most innocent himself, feared not to suffer so great and so ineffable injuries and insults for thy cause. Godeleva, strengthened by which informations, in her squalid mantle, as she was, and her countenance now consumed by leanness, soon set herself to accomplish what the girl exhorted; namely falling at Bertulf's feet, with amorous and cheerful aspect, a sweet exhibition of salutation being premised, she extended her virginal hand; which he, swollen from the most vehement inflation of spite, disdaining to receive, with averted face turned himself to depart. But of the atrocious cruelty of his mother what shall I report, who, as soon as she beheld the holy spouse of God, belched forth from her polluted mouth things so nefarious, that no one would doubt that her tongue was a sharp sword, and the poison of asps under her lips; for now, calling her with rabid mouth a cursed pest, or a hypocrite, or at all events a bloody beast, now she cries out to her son thousands of anathemas over the vile contracted marriage; the whole house itself roars with strife and furies.

[30] but the mother, driven to rage by [her prayers,] The iniquity of the proud being therefore multiplied over Godeleva, although with humble silence, gesture, and act she continually strove to overcome [it], yet feeling how clotted and hardened their hearts were, holding [it] persuaded to convince them by reason with modest speech, she addressed her mother-in-law in this manner. Since, she said, I remember myself never guilty before thee of any crime worthy of such afflictions, I cannot marvel enough how I have given thee occasion of such spite and cruelty against me. But if I have wrought any iniquity, behold I offer myself of my own accord to be punished with a discreet chastisement. But if I am free from fault, it is of no small peril, by the accusations of so many complaints, to rouse the mind of my husband against me with implacable spite. But since every onset has difficult approaches, and raw wounds shudder at hands laid on them; these things being heard, the plainly malicious woman, more vehemently troubled, beholding her with grim eyes, as she was, answered: Since the detestable works of thy perversity are known by all, was it needful even to prove these by testimonies? May a thousand deaths hurl me down, if I do not provoke my son's worse hatreds against thee, for this thy proud invective, that, afflicted with cruel vengeance, thou mayest pay penalties worthy of thy temerity.

[31] O the unappeasable and implacable fury of feminine insolence! she dares to strike the virgin. Of which we read written in a truthful proverb; There is no head worse than the head of a serpent, and there is no wrath above the wrath of a woman. It will please to dwell with a lion and a dragon, rather than to dwell with a wicked woman. Consider thou too here, O reader, if to a reprobate heart thou offer a useful word, thy correction often renders it the more bitter. Truly I think this woman bore the type of the kinsman of Malchus, striking the Lord's jaw in the sight of Annas, who, made more atrocious by the Virgin's reasonable objection, affected her with a reproachful insult, a malicious threat, and a certain striking of the face. But the most devout Virgin, casting all hope on God, passing over these contumelies and threats with as it were a deaf ear, while she commended her contest to the Lord, suffused more abundantly with heavenly illustration, felt it revealed to her by an inward sending, that in those tribulations the most efficacious strength of Christ would not be wanting to her, if, not unmindful of that example, she labored to perfect the virtue of patience with long-suffering.

[32] Indeed now Bertulf indignant had turned aside from the place, Nor heard by her husband, whom at the same time, found in another place I know not what, with increased confidence, the Virgin assailed with these words. Remember, she said, husband to be venerated, with how laborious and solicitous a diligence a little before thou didst toil, that I might be joined to thee in lawful wedlock: so far even did this business move thy heart, that, the minds of many princes and nobles being conciliated to thee, thou didst most instantly ask their assistance. Behold now the most manifest signs of the most intent love

are soon followed by the experiments of a greater hatred. Was the honey which thou tastedst a painted poison? Why, my Lord, art thou angry with thy handmaid? Why, Bertulf, art thou agitated with spite against thy friend? Why, husband, dost thou pursue with hatred thy wife? I desire not to be over, but to be under; I am thy home-born servant, compel me to the vilest services of thy house, thou wilt experience me plainly ever most prompt to thy commands; for it is right for me to undertake thy biddings, only turn away, I beseech, from me poor woman thy wrath, let this fury of thy indignation cease: for shameful [are] a man and woman but now joined, straightway enemies; no man approves those quarrels ^c.

[33] By these pious complaints of Godeleva the man's mind would perhaps have now cooled from wrath, she is deputed to the vilest services. unless, prevented by the pernicious suggestion of his impious mother, he had permitted himself to be roused to worse things; for she persuading, that she whom by the instinct of spite she called a crow, because she seemed black of hair and eyebrows, should be placed in the field for driving off the crows from the crops, straightway impiety prescribing what was honorable, Bertulf ordered, that that noble young girl should in all things incline herself to his mother's precepts, and should sweat more diligently at routing those hostile little birds about the crops. But if otherwise, unmindful of the command, she should show herself more negligent about the work, she should undoubtedly foreknow that she would be afflicted with the hard contumelies of words. Promptly therefore and humbly complying with her husband's will, the Virgin gladly betook herself to the fields, not deploring her own misery, but greatly fearing that her husband's salvation was in peril. Therefore she did not cease, even shaken by so great a whirlwind of tribulations, day and night to commend her husband's salvation to God with tearful prayers; she herself now no sluggish follower of her spouse Christ, who, affixed to the cross, deigned to pray for his enemies.

ANNOTATA.

CAPUT V.

Deputed to drive off the birds from the crops, by a miracle she compels them into a barn, that she may be present at the sacred rite. New vexations from her raging mother-in-law, and the diminution of the little portion of bread by the half part. She is committed to two servants to be harried.

Compelled to drive off the birds from the crops, Meanwhile while night rushes down and embraces the earth with dusky wings, Godeleva, occupied not with frivolous discourses, nor loosing her tongue to empty tales, but devoutly murmuring the words of prayer, returned home, was found to have often spent the night in prayer, and in the morning, the topmost light scarcely sprinkling the mountains, the day being risen, returned to the enjoined labor, offered herself benevolent, yet with one girl accompanying her, on account of the perils of detractors; who while she seemed to grieve at the lot of the blessed young girl, in that she herself, a virgin of noble lineage, joined in marriage to so great a man, was enslaved to such vile services, under so great want of food and clothing. But she herself, the spouse of Christ, piously rebuking her, affirmed that over those effects of the divine promise there was by no means to be grief; nay rather in hope of the sons of God we ought to esteem all joy, when we shall have fallen into various tribulations, but all the faithful who have pleased God have passed through many tribulations: for as gold is now proved by fire, so we sinners must needs be purged in the furnace of tribulation; since indeed grief, while it heals wounds, is the medicine of grief, but a harsher draught heals graver diseases. On the contrary, minds most often run riot in prosperous things, therefore to prosper is to lack prosperity.

[35] she compels them into a barn Going along in this manner, while they enjoyed mutual colloquies, it happened that at a certain chapel not far distant, [she] was summoned to Mass; whereat the virgin Godeleva, gladdened by the hearing, while desiring to be present at the divine offices, girt herself for the journey, behold an innumerable multitude of those hostile birds flying up in flocks, covered the fields about the crops; which while Godeleva's companion strove to drive off, lest her lady be therefore hindered from Mass; be not, said the holy young girl, broken by too much labor, daughter, great is the Lord, and great is his virtue, in whom hoping, I trust that we shall by no means be separated from the hearing of Mass. And forthwith stretching her hands upturned to heaven with her voice, the virgin poured forth prayers from the bottom of her breast; having experienced that in this too the propitiation of the divine piety was not wanting to her. Wonderful to say, soon commanding those birds, in the virtue of him who is the creator of all, she compelled by a single word the immense flocks of those wild birds, threatening them with a little rod which by chance she held in her hand, as if driving domestic fowl, indicating by indignant chatterings that they suffered violence, into an old barn which was at hand, with no faculty of going away, until, the divine offices being fulfilled, she should return. Nor a wonder, since indeed, perceiving themselves to be driven by some supernatural virtue as it were from the sacred mouth of the Virgin, they could in no way disobey the precept of her who conformed herself unceasingly to the divine wills.

[36] Godeleva therefore, a most noble virgin, rich indeed in virtues, until she had been present at the sacrifice of Mass; but of most poor appearance, namely bare of foot, covered with a vile mantle, entered the chapel, and, her knee being doubled, prostrate on the ground, with the little vessel of compassion drew waters from the fountains of the Savior, with which, if she had contracted any dust by earthly conversation, she washed [it] off; hence she asked of her Beloved grace in the present for herself and her husband Bertulf, and glory in the future, watered with most copious streams of tears. Meanwhile the divine offices being ended, returned to the fields, the captive birds merited redemption, yet they dared not to depart, until, license being received from the holy spouse of God, they were bidden to fly away with a blessing. When all these things had been laid open to the Virgin's companion, vehemently marveling, doubting not that all things were to be ascribed to the heavenly virtue, she judged that they should be intimated to Bertulf and his mother, if perchance by the consideration of so great a portent their ferocious minds could be mitigated. Opportunity therefore being received, she herself declaring to them what she had beheld with her eyes, forthwith their limbs are loosed with cold; chiefly since the rumor had not yet fallen from their mind i.e. they had not forgotten what had been done concerning the species divinely transmuted: but his mother, a woman of hardened wickedness, crying out that this girl was a fawning flatterer ^b and a liar, that, led by carnal affect, or allured by hope of reward, she framed these frivolous figments, convicted her son of being too foolish, who, applying faith to vain rumors, now seemed nearly to be seduced, ignorant that fame, as tenacious of the feigned and depraved, is wont to pour back many lies from the least grain of truth.

[37] Therefore, she said, if anything of a deed be at hand, which prodigy the mother-in-law ascribes to magic arts. either by magic art, or at all events by some juggling, the matter must undoubtedly be esteemed to have been done: nor concerning this most wicked woman has the now long-standing opinion of a thing of this kind deceived me; nay I have always suspected her a hypocrite and given to the illusions of fantastic deceptions. For shame! that our noble births must be defamed by this most wicked witch! Alas wretched Bertulf, how great disgraces hast thou by this unhappy marriage inflicted on thy noble race! Truly the funerals of thy natural death would have been more useful to me than the solemnities of these ill-omened nuptials. At which words of maternal iniquity, if any spark of piety had revived in the man's mind, soon extinguished by the flood of exuberant spite, it slips back into the darkness of the old hatred, by which the foolish heart of each of them was so darkened, that they most firmly asserted that these mighty works of the divine propitiation must be imputed to diabolical deceptions. Wherefore these things narrated, while they filled the empty ears of men with discourses, lest they should concede either praise to blessed Godeleva, or contumely to themselves, they wavered with themselves in trembling counsels, what must be done in this matter.

[38] Bertulf therefore, his two servants being called, namely Hacca and Lambert, addressed them with a speech of this kind. Reduced to extreme hunger, It wearies my soul, he said, of my life; for bound by these miseries, [and] dishonored by the bonds of a most vile and unworthy wife, as by an unhappy, disgraceful marriage, and made a spectacle to the world, I waste away with grave grief; nor have I judged that another medicine is at hand for this disease, unless, traversing more remote provinces, while what saddens is withdrawn from my eyes, my mournful mind be relieved by solaces sought. To you therefore, in whom I greatly trust, I leave my wife to be handled; whom, going daily to church, accompanying together with the maidservant, in the sight of men, consulting our honor, exhibit what is worthy. But separated from the people, or remaining at home, affected with contumelies and revilings, thrusting her back into the deputed little chamber, minister to her so scanty a daily portion of bread and salt with water, that, her necessaries failing, she may not be able to bestow even a little on any beggar: for I esteem it of less evil, that she be wasted with afflictions of this kind, than to keep her surviving, to the peril of my head and the scandal of our noble stock, and the seduction of many suppliants. Now therefore going hastily, according to the manner delivered to you, bring her; for in the neighboring chapel, which from the place, Ten Snipgate ^c, commonly obtains its appellation, garrulous, sitting among the neighboring old women, to the glory of her own excuse, and without doubt to our derogation, she talks.

[39] she is committed to two servants for [the sake of honor,] Those servants of impiety therefore, undertaking the execution of this impious commission, raged the more cruelly against the Virgin, the more cruel a master they judged themselves to serve in this. For no beast [is] more foul than the rage of a servant raging against free necks; for as they entered the chapel, according to the tenor of Bertulf's precept, with much reverence, before the eyes of their lady Godeleva they obeyed ^d. Which seeing, those who for her contemptible clothing and miserable apparatus of want a little before accused Bertulf of impiety, took occasion of a more benign judgment, imputing that outward slenderness to her humility or devout simplicity. Namely whose every speech, gesture, and conversation breathed so great honesty, that, now esteemed blessed by very many, her pious works were said to profit the whole province. But now, the ministers of iniquity being with the most gentle young girl Godeleva separated from men, what vile mockeries they inflicted on her, and with how great injuries of contumelies they affected [her], unless he had seen [it], no one would believe: and thus leading her, like a captive, though by no means bound with chains, in through the door of the house, they found Bertulf now absent; inasmuch as, his mind conscious of the dire deed lashing him with a deaf blow, shaking his mind with a hidden tormentor's scourge, he hoped that he could do [it] with impunity, if with the eye of flesh he did not see what was done by his authority and command.

[50] in truth that she might be the more harried; Plainly blind and cowardly is this emulation of that man; thinking thus to have escaped, carrying night and day with him the witness which he bears in his breast; since whoever thinks any crime within himself, yet has the guilt of the deed. Nor does it matter whether thou be the mediate or immediate cause of evil, thou who makest others to be guilty. O therefore the wrath of the highest deity, truly to be dreaded, which so unfolds vengeances by an equal judgment, that when anyone has harmed, he is punished with the same penalty: the sacred word attesting, in which it is said: His grief shall be turned upon his head, and his iniquity upon his own crown

shall descend. The holy Virgin therefore is driven into the little chamber, contemptible indeed, yet situated in an honorable place of the court, for stopping the mouths of speakers, those wicked slaves, as we believe, insulting her with these words: Dost thou presume to be our lady? Dost thou desire to be over us? Be thou confounded, that thou thinkest to rule even the vilest slave; nor do we reckon thee worthy to be over the swine. Oughtest thou, most wretched witch, to have been joined to so great and such a noble man, in a beautiful and most rich marriage? Most unhappy plainly he himself, who will have to be defiled by thy ill-omened wedlock; a day of wished-for tidings therefore would it be to him, which should announce thee taken away by sudden death, [and] him relieved of this foul and ungrateful weight.

[41] The Virgin harried with many kinds of contumelies like these, deprived of the middle part of the little portion of bread; although most noble, most tenderly nurtured in delights in a soldierly hall, yet preserved so great a modesty of patience, that, the malicious servants being brought to nothing in her sight, thou wouldst think her with blessed Job now to drink up jeering like water. But that servile rage, ignorant of right, powerful in fraud, so far from being at all pricked by the so inviolable patience of the holy maiden, nay rather now overflowed into the forbidden, for adding ironic mockeries to manifest contumelies, they said: We keenly perceive that thou art carried away by so great a fervor of devotion, that all the sharpness of our words grows sweet to thee. It has therefore pleased Bertulf our master, and his venerable mother, consulting for the spiritual life of thee, to enjoin us, that we grant thee every possible opportunity for fostering this devotion. Wherefore, that thou mayest be able to be separated from the world and worldly solicitudes, in this little chamber thou must remain unceasingly, and, the governance of the whole court being left to us, no faculty of going out hence, or of speaking to anyone, unless we assisting, is granted thee. Moreover we judge a sober refreshment most useful to thee, for the augmentation of devotion; a little bread with salt and water they have assigned to be ministered to thee by the day. Use these as thou pleasest, knowing that all hope of further consolation, as long as thou livest, is taken from thee.

[42] The blessed virgin Godeleva, hearing that she was to be afflicted with this straitness, amid all these things ever mild and patient. not murmuring at the inhuman rigor of her husband, not impatient at the insults of the most vile slaves, not solicitous concerning the sustenance of nature, but fully trusting in the divine mercy, ran most prompt after her Beloved, rejoicing to be conformed to the example of him who, whereas he was rich, being made needy for us, delivered himself to one judging unjustly, now to his rivals ascribing his divine works to the prince of demons, now conspiring into his innocent death, who did no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth, neither when he was cursed did he curse, nor when he suffered did he threaten. Namely, new tempests of tribulations daily rushing hence upon the blessed young girl, and the present not yet finished, others succeeding, as if taught by exercise for every war, she confidently said: If camps stand against me, my heart shall not fear; if battle rise up against me, in this will I hope. One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord.

ANNOTATA.

CAPUT VI.

Continual and daily sharper straits; pious exhortations to those visiting her; new atrocity of Bertulf, who tries to kill by hunger his holy wife, trusting in the Lord.

The servants daily more absurd While therefore blessed Godeleva was daily sustained with the bread of tribulation and the water of straitness, not without a copious inflicting of contumelies, although the scantiness of the aliment scarcely sufficed for the preservation of nature, yet continually, as was before touched, the beggars turning aside to her, she was not wearied to bestow the middle little portion daily. Which the servants of impiety bearing unworthily, that virtue of her commiseration was accused by a vicious interpretation, saying; that all these things were done by her for the defamation of her husband, and the ostentation of her own liberality, or at all events for the occasion of chattering or murmurings, at which they lied that she gave leisure unceasingly with the old women, running together for the cause of receiving alms; but that any honorable person detested her fellowships, because her depraved colloquies displeased, and dulled virtuous ears. They threatened therefore that, to their coming master, she should be accused with great complaints, that, flowing with too great an abundance of food, she continually gave her effort with her voluptuous insolences to the irreparable contumely of the marital race.

[44] For all these things the most gentle young girl, moved nothing at all in mind, but with untiring prayer beseeching for those persecuting and calumniating her, and with the whole affect of her mind greatly wishing salvation to them, admonished them, saying: Beloved friends, I grieve that your salvation is in peril by my crisis; who in this my exercise suffer a copious loss of souls, attaining no gain of impiety, without the ineffable loss of your salvation: for you, whom vicious ignorance overspreads on a devious path, consider not at all how great rewards await the good, what thunderbolts the depraved; by how narrow a limit lofty virtue seeks her way; how difficult the ascent to her, and easy the descent; this life how brief, like a light shadow so is it annihilated: how happy is he who has merited to lead a secure life and to close his stable days with a glad end. As the blessed young girl pursued these and like things devoutly, those diabolical slaves, knowing not to be tamed, like deaf asps, stopping their ears, with laughters and obscene gestures mocking her pious suggestions, departed. Nor a wonder, for a wicked man rejoices to render poison for honey, penalty for fruit, guile for piety.

[45] But the spouse of Christ, knowing that prudence ought not to be wounded by stupid laughter, refusing the aid of the other domestics; rendered inexhaustible thanks to God, who is not wearied continually to furnish to the wretched the exemplar of patience and the aid of perseverance, beseeching through her God mighty in virtue, who after the sacred fast confounded him who assailed [him] with temptation, that he would deign to preserve her, firmly corroborated by the grace of constancy, immune and unharmed, in so great crises stirred up by diabolical craft. And that the virtue of this prayer was not empty, the following course of her life proved. For certain of the household, compassionating her adverse chances, were busy to take away from themselves the aliments of food, that they might succor the Virgin's want; which the most patient friend of God by no means permitting; It behooves us, she said, to obey masters, not only good, but even the froward. Since therefore by the precept of your master you know this business to regard Hacca and Lambert alone, I by no means desire you to be in peril for my cause. Yet for your pious affects I ask from God an eternal reward, who has deigned to give me such firmness of confidence in his commiseration, that the morrow may [not] make me solicitous, lest food be wanting to my belly, or a body wherewith it may be clothed; nature is content with few and least things; nor am I ignorant who said: Cast thy thought upon the Lord, and he himself will nourish thee: who also exhorted with an inviolable promise; First seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.

[46] Those men, feeling in blessed Godeleva this inviolable constancy of patience and devotion of heart, who [became heralds of her virtues.] pierced with the dart of greater compassion, by no means forbade to lay open to the neighbors all the tribulation of the innocent maiden, judging that in this they rendered an obsequy to God. Forthwith the rumor goes through the great cities of Flanders; rumor, than which no other evil is more swift, thrives in mobility, and acquires strength by going. Whereby it happened, that, like the crowds rushing upon Jesus, that they might hear him, some to imitate; others to lay snares; many to be healed; some incited by the curiosity of novelty, that they might behold the marvels of his works; so men of divers conditions, with divers respects of intentions, seemed to flow together to the holy spouse of God. Some, that, receiving alms, they might be refreshed in body: others flattering her with a guileful tongue, desiring to catch something from her mouth, in which they might accuse her: but many, who had learned her marvelous works in far places, desiring to see her person face to face; some compassionating her afflictions, that they might console her with pious informations.

[47] And some of these, from the number of those flowing together, both rich and poor, men of every kind flow together to her; some were virgins, some married, some widows, who while, visiting the blessed young girl, they exhibited corporal love, carried back from her a refreshment of mind and soul, namely because she had learned by experience the conditions of all these states, and herself the judge of herself, had explored herself wholly to the fingernail; the little eye of her mind being first cleansed from fault, she was now found fit to admonish others upon those things; for how many necessities the straitness of poverty suffers, long affliction thoroughly taught her: herself ever the specimen and exemplar of virgins, remaining inviolate unto death, she was able to decree rights fit for virgins. Who would affirm that she was ignorant of the discomforts of the conjugal and widowed state, since, joined to a man by faith and the consent of friends, and yet ever intact in body, repudiated by him after a little, she preserved the form of a true widow unto the end. The blessed Godeleva therefore loosing her honey-flowing tongue for speaking, for the time, to those who had convened, all fell silent and intent held their mouths; and those in whom was the simple eye of right intention, received as it were from the mouth of God the pastures of souls.

[48] she herself admonishes them, and first her poor, Speaking thus to the poor, with these words, as we believe, she ministered the seeds of life ^a. Blessed [are] you, O poor, to whom by the mouth of Truth the inheritance of the kingdom of the heavens is inscribed. You, she said, [are] the most chosen and most living members, the Evangelical word attesting, of the highest Head, you worthy of the communion of that last and perennial heavenly supper; you poor [are] the true followers of Christ, who was poor and in labors from his youth, not having where to incline his most blessed head. O truly happy condition of poverty, which makes [men] most expeditious for running the way of the commandments of God, if considered patience govern penury. Whence a certain poet: Poverty, if it come glad, is a most safe thing, [and] makes the seeds of virtues more convenient. This the Savior, teaching by word and example, compared to a precious pearl, for the buying of which all things are to be despised. Surround therefore this poverty with joy, ye poor, and embrace it with promptitude of will, lest perchance losing eternal things together with earthly, which the Lord avert, ye be crushed as it were with a double crushing.

[49] then virgins, To the virgins indeed she said, that sobriety would be necessary for the custody of an inestimable treasure, by which they have merited to be called sisters of the Angels, because virginity is akin to the angels. Therefore they ought neither to run about through others' houses, nor to mingle any discourses in public; they must flee all manly touches, private colloquies, untimely wanderings, depraved and empty colloquies, and immodest gazes,

as lethal pests of chastity, for a fervid flame harms by its nearby vapor, nor is chastity once wounded reparable by any art. Let their discourses therefore be rare and honest; modest in aspect, cast-down in look, humble in gesture, simple in habit, moderate in laughter, pure and sincere in thoughts, for the virginity of the soul is an inviolate mind, without which the abundance of bodily modesty profits nothing. Let them finally be prompt in obsequy, devoted to God, sedulous in prayers, never void of labors. These are the fruits, from which the quality of the tree of chastity may be indicated, since according to that which is done without, it is for the most part shown by the testimony of the inner disposition.

[50] The married this blessed Virgin admonished, that they ought to be of one mind, afterward the married, observing the undivided intercourse of life; for the God of peace, instituting and sanctifying marriage, placed [it] in the paradise of peace to be celebrated with an honorable and chaste embrace; and, taking the woman from the body of the man, taught a charitable and loving union and concord of two natures in one flesh; for we have learned that he made her neither of the head, nor of the flesh or bones of the feet, but of a rib, which he took from the side of the sleeping [man]. For a wife ought not to wish to rule or to be equal to her husband, but with humility to esteem herself inferior; nor does it become the husband, to enslave her wholly to his nods, as some servile person, who in nothing must persist except what pleases herself, a certain poet saying: Thou shalt never give anything with thy wife unwilling, thou shalt sell nothing with her forbidding: let nothing be loved, if she will [it] not. Therefore by the Apostolic command, husbands not having power of their own body, it is enjoined that they love their wives, as Christ loved the Church, whose strength flowed from the side of the [one] sleeping on the cross: whom he deigned to call not a handmaid, but his mother, sister, queen, and most beloved spouse. Great therefore [is] this Sacrament, where one alone loves one spouse alone, and one alone cherishes one alone: not, like the horse and the mule, overcome by love of the flesh, to abuse a wife with those [who] rejoice, but out of love of honorable offspring, peacefully, charitably, and in the fear of God, condescending to mutual infirmities, conforming themselves to mutual wills, and procuring mutual salvation with piety. But by contrary affects to these, hindering one another from mutual salvation, to persist is to be judged not a Sacrament, but adultery.

[51] The widows finally she admonished, to flee secular disturbances with their whole heart, but at last the widows; to shun the defilements of the world, to greatly fear the snares. Let her not follow earthly wealth, which she ought to spurn, [she] who wishes to be rich with the Lord. Night and day in hope she ought to insist on supplications and prayers, to bewail the bloody wounds of Christ; the dry flower of worldly joys being despised, to follow the sweet footsteps of Jesus, to give leisure unceasingly to works of piety, and let her study to enjoy a girded sobriety. A widow, I say, it becomes to have a simple habituation ^b, a composition of morals, modesty of words, modesty in aspect, patience in tribulation, constancy in persecution, but fear in prosperity; and like the turtledove, bereaved of her mate, by no means to admit another. Fleeing crowds, let her groan at the discomforts of the spiritual life, and, the eye of her mind being cleansed with tears, with a charitable affect and a faithful understanding, ascending as with two wings to heavenly things, let her study to taste how sweet the Lord is. Many things like these blessed Godeleva, belching forth from her saving mouth, insinuated the paths of eternal life into the hearts of those coming to her. O the venerable and worthily to be imitated doctrine of this woman! O the to-be-proclaimed and truly to-be-admired wisdom of this blessed young girl! Plainly there is no such woman upon the earth in aspect, as to the honesty of morals; in beauty, as to the sincerity of conscience; and in the sense of words, as to the frugality of her condition.

[52] imparting words of salvation to all. And who could weigh with a sufficient mind the marks of her virtues, who could explain with worthy discourses the innumerable proclamations of her praise? For grace upon grace [is] a holy and modest woman; fallacious [is] all glory of riches and vain beauty: a woman fearing the Lord, she shall be praised. How blessed, how happy, O thou Bertulf, wouldst thou have been, if, thoroughly knowing the divine powers of such and so great a marriage, thou hadst favored with pious favor the salutary vows of thy wife, the word of the Wise [man] assenting, saying: Blessed [is] the man of a good woman, for the grace of her sedulity will delight him, and will fatten his bones, and will fulfill the years of his life in peace. Indeed how fortunate thou couldst have been called an orphan, if thou hadst lacked that impious mother from infancy, or at least, constantly following the path of virtue, hadst studied to be made a deaf hearer of her enticing suggestion, who was made to thee a torch of Satan, a gate of hell, a way of iniquity, a sting of death, and the stroke of a scorpion: for yielding to her cruel counsels, engaging in fight with the Holy Spirit, made a fierce enemy to virtue, thou didst perilously succumb. And thou wouldst at all events have perished, unless that most pious thy wife, repaying love for hatred, excusing thy iniquity with tears and prayers before the most equitable judge, had brought thee back to the fruit of a better life.

[53] Hence the new atrocity of Bertulf, Bertulf therefore, as was before touched, absenting himself for a long time, surveyed cities and camps, [he] to whom it was fair, according to Horace's word, to sleep into the mid of the days. And when, his belly being fattened, he was daily washed down with full wine, he put to flight the griefs and cares of his heart. If ever among the crowds of banqueters discourse of perverse women was mingled, he soon calumniated Godeleva as most wicked with envious detraction, [and] seemed to flatter with amicable applause those assenting to him, but those dissenting and sometimes reprehending [him] with a compassionate affect, he either affected with revilings, or renounced their society. Returned home indeed, to the holy virgin, now nearly failing with the hard straitness of miseries, in place of a salutation, he first inculcated grave words of contumelies; saying that he vehemently grieved, that he had not yet felt himself so happy, that he could have found her deceased of life: to whose raging mind those servants of all iniquity, sharpening their tongues like a serpent's, while they continually accused her with lying complaints, supplied copious fomentation, to whose wicked delations he himself lending faith, affected her with so great terrors of words and threats, that these exceeded by comparison the former afflictions. But although grave harsh sayings irritate minds, yet the spouse of God tried ever to conquer evil in good; for she was cursed and blessed, was blasphemed and beseeched, wishing salvation to those with heartfelt prayers for Christ's sake.

[54] By which constancy of patience the ministers of the devil, as if convinced by reason, though not amended, trying to extinguish his wife by hunger, their conscience bearing witness to them, confounded departed. Yet meeting at an agreed place, by wicked counsel it was decreed, that the little portion of bread and water, which she had hitherto had, over the former diminutions, thirdly halved ^c, should be given her, that, attenuated with too great wants, without doubt swallowed up into death, she might be able to hasten the untimely awaited hour of her deposition. Moreover since the very commemoration of good things is hard enough to the wretched, this too was devised for the exaggeration of their cruelty, by a new kind of torment, that those who ministered to the holy Virgin that little aliment of her refreshment, should bear hands full of the best foods, refreshing themselves. There were sent for this, as the less useful little slaves and boys of the house, bringing up an abundance of dainty and precious dishes to their mouths, that together with Hacca and Lambert, presenting themselves to the sight of Godeleva, they might insult her with revilings, and that, her criminal deeds requiring and deserving it, the home-born servants and slaves of the whole house abounding with a great and precious affluence of foods, the lady herself, hateful at once to God and men, must be sustained with the bread of tribulation and the water of straitness. O the admirable force of human malice, which, that it might be made more cruel to its own, was made propitious to strangers! O at all events the detestable perversity of those men, whom piety could not make bountiful, grim impiety made bountiful.

[55] For all these things the most gentle young girl returned not curses upon the authors, cleaving most constantly to God. nor kept hatreds in her heart, nor wasted away with desire of vengeance, but ever with ineffable desires in gladness of heart rendered to God inexhaustible returns of thanks, who forsook her not with his propitiation, [her] set in tribulation; so assisting her at the right hand, that she should not be moved, that she could continually hope to make of necessity a salvation, while she, a poor little widow, determined to offer to the Lord those minute things of her body, namely body and soul, in a voluntary and most inclined sacrifice, daily slaying without a holocaust of stricter penitence, of devout prayer and rigorous abstinence, of virtuous admonition, of voluntary poverty, of hospitality and communion, sedulous as much as she was able. With these, as with the variety of beauteous virtues, shining in a wondrous manner in a gilded garment, nevertheless consecrating her grateful heart a temple to God ^d, all her glory within burns with the most fervent fire of inviolable charity blazing on the altar of her mind, she continually offered to God the incense of a most sweet odor in a continual sacrifice, boldly saying with the Apostle: Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ, tribulation, or straitness, or hunger, or nakedness, or peril, or persecution, or the sword? For I am certain, that neither death nor life: for in all these we overcome, on account of him who loved us.

ANNOTATA.

CAPUT VII.

The flight of the Saint to her parents; the mandates of the Bishop of Noyon and the Count of Flanders, that Bertulf treat her better, [she] being brought back: the prediction of her future glory among the Flemings, and the tenets of a most holy woman truly strong.

Now the copious straitness of the tribulation of the holy virgin and widow Godeleva, By the counsel of a pious matron and another virgin having rolled down to the ears of many, filling the people with manifold discourse, it happened that a certain honorable woman of notable experience turned aside to her for the cause of visitation, who tried to induce her by many persuasions, that, fleeing to her paternal aid, she ought for a time to yield to the warfare; nor was it useful, to those who glory when they have done ill and exult in the worst things, to furnish occasion of so great a loss of her salvation, chiefly since no necessity of the Church or edification of the neighbor seemed to require this private and personal tribulation: as though, when persecution at all events emerges, Christ, the cross being received, must be spontaneously followed, that, we being humbled under the mighty hand of God, the proof of our faith may be much more precious than gold, which is proved by fire. Yet in the present case, consulting for the salvation of the wicked, like a clean animal cleaving the hoof ^a, that her obsequy might be made reasonable, she must use the salt of discretion, lest, while she thought to offer rightly, and did not rightly divide, as liable to sin, it happen that all hope of her salvation be evacuated. This information the blessed young girl,

when she had gathered it with attentive ear, although she had judged it opportune according to her simplicity, yet deemed it useful that what had been persuaded should be indicated to one faithful companion virgin.

[57] she determines to flee to her parents; But that was a young girl of good disposition, prudent in counsel, and honest in conversation, who had seen the miracle, by which a flock of birds, obeying Godeleva's precepts, had gathered itself into a barn. On both sides therefore the perils of the deed were discussed: for the blessed Virgin feared that her parents, the miseries of her unhappy marriage being heard, would be affected with grave griefs of sadness. Finally she foresaw that Bertulf would have to be defamed with too great ignominies of railing: yet feeling that the salvation of souls must altogether be preferred, and that provision must be made for her life in this case, although not without a certain sadness of heart, she decreed nevertheless to depart, opportunity being seen. Commending therefore her cause to the Lord, who searches hearts and reins, with tearful prayers, on a certain day, the aforesaid virgin accompanying her, secretly departing, relieving the way with devout discourses, they set out. But when now the threshold of the seat of her country was reached, the young girl Godeleva, having entered the palace, was recognized by no one; inasmuch as she who had been led away by her spouse a virgin most beautiful and comely of countenance, now seemed of consumed and deformed face, pale with leanness, bare of foot, covered with a vile and squalid mantle.

[58] Yet this changed appearance of the daughter, although it confounded the eyes of her mother Ogena with great amazement, which [was the Count of Flanders'.] yet by no means lay hidden; but the cause of her so miserable coming being heard, growing pale, the rosy color of her cheeks being changed, she herself, collapsed among the hands of the bystanders, grew stiff. Soon, the crowd of the domestics flowing together round about, the house resounds far and wide with clamors, and the roofs roar with feminine wailing. There runs up too the father himself, who, struck by the bitter chance, and vehemently amazed at the novelty of the matter, grew dumb. The spirit of both being at last resumed, the virgin Godeleva, calming her countenance with hope, and pressing grief deep in her heart; Bertulf being excused, as far as her pious conscience dictated, soothes the mourning hearts with bland addresses. Heinfrid nevertheless, the truth of the business being more fully inquired and learned from the Virgin's companion, drawing frequent sighs with his wife over his daughter's ill-omened wedlock, counsel being taken, approached Baldwin Count of Flanders, and, laying open to him the whole series of the matter, earnestly implored his aid for restoring a salutary concord, inasmuch as by his diligence and work the very coupling of the marriage had obtained its effect.

[59] But the Count, compassionating with his whole affect the unhappy chances of the Virgin, and by the authority of the Bishop of Noyon, gave a benign assent to the pious requests of his friend, and, supported by the writings of his magnificence, recommended [her] to the Prelate of Noyon and Tournai ^b, because the case seemed of the ecclesiastical forum, to be consoled, who, if he should be rendered too slow in executing the matters, he promised such remedies of his authority, that, the rest being terrified by vengeance on him, the way should be closed to like deeds. But the Prelate, out of his reverence, treating humanely Heinfrid coming to him, most benignly received, and conforming himself to all his desires, promises that Bertulf, unless, repenting, he recall his life from this iniquity, he would compel with the extreme rigor of ecclesiastical censure. Threatening letters therefore being sent by the Bishop, he is induced, under the threat of ecclesiastical severity, concerning taking back his wife, and treating [her] piously according to the rite of the Sacrament. But he himself not only remained maliciously contumacious, but even sent back the bearer, harried with revilings, with presumptuous temerity.

[60] Namely now delivered into a reprobate sense, he judged that nothing must be shunned or [was] pernicious, Bertulf, however contumacious, by which he could be freed from her. Therefore if he had heard of any witch or superstitious old woman, who promised to loose with charms the minds she wished, but to send hard cares upon others; to stay the water in rivers and turn the stars back: to her he joined himself in familiar colloquy, hoping to be consoled by her counsel: but the wretch was deceived by vanity into that very [end]. But happy Godeleva, who looked not into vanities and false madnesses, although not yet fully conscious of the heavenly disposition concerning herself, yielding for a time to obstinate malice for the salvation of souls, consented to be conformed to Christ; now offering herself an exemplar to the perfect and to the weak, now wasting with the terror of death, she asked that the cup of passion be taken from her; now feigning to be content with the aid of flight, she said with the Prophet: Iniquities have declined upon me, and in wrath they were grievous to me; therefore my heart is troubled within me, and the fear of death has fallen upon me: and I said, Who will give me wings like a dove, I will fly and rest: Behold I have gone far off fleeing, awaiting him who saved me from pusillanimity of spirit and the tempest.

[61] they take care that he be compelled Bertulf therefore, rebellious to the Church with contumacious temerity, prolonging his iniquity, defamed the holy virgin Godeleva, whom he could not affect with contumelies present, by venomous detraction in her absence, saying that she was loquacious and lying, and that the whole occasion of his affliction must be imputed to her perverse insolence; and publicly asserted that she had fled for no other cause than to inflict contumely on himself. While his mouth continually abounded with which malice, and his tongue unceasingly framed guiles, it happened, that he who had despised to obey God and the Church salutarily, was violently compelled to obey a man. For Count Baldwin ordered him by writings, that, all delay being excluded, he ought thenceforth to cherish his wife, taken back, with honest and pious cohabitation, or let him not doubt that he would be punished with so cruel a chastisement, that, together with himself the fruit of all his goods being destroyed from the earth, he might be able to be held for a terror to all hearing. Which mandate of the Prince being read, shuddering with sudden dread, inasmuch as he had thoroughly known the man's inviolable rigor of justice, he held it persuaded that somehow for the hour the precept of majesty must not be disobeyed. Hacca and Lambert therefore being called ^c, his detestable ministers, as conscious of his secret counsel, he unlocked the straits of his heart, to whom straightway it seemed opportune for the evasion of the threatened penalty, that they be sent on horseback in festive dress to the presence of Heinfrid, to whom, exhibiting themselves cheerful and voluntary, as ignorant of all compulsion, an honest recommendation of their master being premised, acting guilefully with their tongues concerning his heartfelt contrition over his indiscretion toward his wife Godeleva, and his chief promise of amendment, while they alleged great things, the parents being appeased, they might strive to allure the Virgin to return.

[62] that he may hold his wife, brought back, more honestly: The foretasted guile therefore, conceived according to the agreement, they pursued. Heinfrid, an honest man, as being simple and upright, judging these things to be done from the heart, cheering in spirit, easy to pardon, exhorted his daughter concerning her husband's contrition and the restoration of the charitable union, with a pious inducement. But she, although by the instinct of the Holy Spirit she foresaw that she would suffer worse things, yet feigning hope with her countenance, as most glad, prompt to her wish, conformed herself to her paternal wills. But Bertulf, when he was compelled by violence to those things which he spurned with the highest affect, fluctuating in his breast with a various heat of wraths, contrived lethal snares for the Virgin: yet calming his grief with his brow, hearing that his wife's presence was not far off, made to meet her, with countenance lying peace ^d his heart waged war. Having entered the court therefore, she was directed to the access of her wonted little chamber; although for a little she was treated more benignly than usual, yet she remained without all governance of the house and dominion. No one extended to her the countenance of sweet familiarity, but the holy young girl, ever having undoubted and inviolable hope in the Lord, now more fully conscious by evident conjectures of the divine counsel concerning herself, put her hand to strong things, demanding day and night with tearful sobs that he be made a consoler to her, to whom the poor [man] is left, and who alone is made a faithful helper to the orphan.

[63] Wherefore, the deific regard irradiating from above, it happened, that according to the multitude of griefs, she herself rebukes those disparaging her husband, the little schedules of divine consolation gladdened her soul, and, made a chosen dwelling of the Holy Spirit, she was adorned with so great insignia of graces, that, the odor of her good name being daily more widely diffused, now more frequently than usual, from divers places, many honest persons of divers states, not ignorant of her affliction, whether by public fame or ocular experience teaching, hastened to her for the cause of visiting. Some of whom, although they had drawn their births from the blood of Bertulf, on account of the singular excellence of the virtues of his wife, meeting him with sharp reprehension, cut themselves off from his familiarity. Others, detesting with private calumnies his inhuman baseness toward a girl of illustrious lineage, decreed that they would accuse him before the Count with grave complaints. But the Virgin dear to God, modestly rebuking these, informed them with pious erudition, saying: Restrain your tongues, dearest ones, from evil, and let your tongues not speak iniquity, remembering that we are constrained by the preceptive mouth of the Savior, to do good to those who hate us. Or are you ignorant, that those whom we call enemies are by no means to be calumniated, nay rather to be recommended to God with affectionate prayer, by whose occasion we are made blessed, the truthful word attesting: Blessed shall you be when men shall have cursed you and persecuted you; for it is the part of the upright to suffer adversities and to tolerate them modestly, nor to move God with a querulous voice in anything; but he will be unworthy to enjoy flatteries and to obtain soft things, who refuses to suffer earthly hard or bitter things.

[64] Wherefore these my lots, as it were adverse to felicity, and predicting her future glory, you ought by no means to grieve; for as, the cloud being driven off, the day is wont to go bright, so by the ineffable gift of the divine propitiation, [it] making a growth with temptation, before all the women of Flanders, I foresee that I shall be exalted with copious riches of honor and wealth. But through various chances, through many crises of things, we must tend to the kingdom, nor are the passions of this time worthy of comparison with the future glory which shall be revealed in us; to which not the nobility of race leads, not the grace of form, but only the virtue of the mind, constancy of mind, the inner beauty of virtues, the abundance of morals, the rigor of poverty, the contempt of the world and of honor. Namely in comparison with it all flesh [is] hay, and all its glory as the flower of hay: for the world passes and all its concupiscence, like a falling flower, while all the things of men hang by a slender thread, and by a sudden chance, the things which prevailed, fall. We have seen many impious [men], born of high blood, whom, distended by the condition of nobility, as with windy pride, and swelling with arrogance, we have passed by; and behold they were not; for being wind and vapor, by the whirlwind of unexpected death, they were suddenly dispersed.

[65] O how frivolous the glory of things, how fugitive the honor of the world, how empty the name. she shows all things here to be vain, Where, I ask, are the Kings of the nations, who had dominion over the beasts of the earth, who sported with the birds of heaven, who treasured up silver and gold, in which men trust, and there was no end of their acquiring. With a wondrous labor of solicitude they fabricated great palaces and cities, [and] they were exterminated, nor is there any finding of their works. They led their days in good things, and in a moment they descended to hell. Now what profited them the windy boasting of pride, what the immense treasure of wealth, what the enticing unchastity of the flesh, what all the enticing delights of their pleasure? All these passed like a shadow; their prosperity, a long series of days, so goes and suddenly falls, while it is thought to stand. What therefore will it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, but of his soul

suffer loss. O therefore plainly foolish exchange, and of extreme madness! to renounce eternal and inexhaustible joys for fallen and momentary things. Declining these therefore, most sweet ones, let us seek and savor the things which are above, never flowing and slipping upon the earth; lest we be wearied, failing in our minds. Nay rather defending them our minds, let us run to the contest set before us, looking to Jesus the author and consummator of faith, who endured such contradiction against himself from sinners, and, joy being set before him, endured the cross, confusion being despised.

[66] truly a strong woman, While with these and like things those visiting the blessed virgin Godeleva were refreshed by her with the aliments of souls, they gathered by evident documents how illustrious and robust her constancy in adversities, how fiery and deiform ^e the desires of her chaste heart, how sweet and salutiferous the words of her tongue, like the pen of the Holy Spirit: at last predicting her glorification with a prophetic mouth, how illumined her mind and foreknowing of things to come. Nay even several monks of no lowly doctrine and perfection, and other spiritual persons, considering lucidly in her their sweet exhortations, hungered for them as it were the viands of their salvation; wherefore, sedulously visiting her, they confessed that they had been watered from her sacred mouth with such a shower of spiritual consolation, as they could never have received from the most learned. O too happy and four times blessed Virgin Godeleva! O truly a strong woman and, in the art of persuading, a most wise woman of Tekoa, whose sacred mouth abounded with so great prudence, and the law of clemency [was] under her tongue. O the immense mercy of God, and the condescension of the divine piety to be celebrated with perpetual praises, which, willing every man to be saved, from those whom he predestined, giving us chosen exemplars from each of the states, leading them by a diverse path indeed, yet to one end of beatitude, granted them to be made conformable to the image of his Son!

[67] having experienced various states For these, by the perfect renunciation of worldly things, a certain hoar-frost of the loftiest poverty refined; those, proved by the affliction of huge torments, by faithful constancy he made worthy of the fruition of God: these, shining with the purity of inviolate chastity, he constituted sisters of the angels; some, their bodies being spontaneously chastised and reduced into servitude, serving piety, he marked with the spiritual gifts of graces. Most lately in these days he granted us the holy young girl Godeleva, as it were an armory of virtues, the ornament of morals, the mirror of sanctity, who, like the evening star, following the sun of justice by a straight path, but now assisting at the right hand of the royal majesty, in the gilded garment of glory, surrounded with the variety of rewards, as with lunar light, leads by a way brighter than the other stars those surrounded with the shadow of tribulations. Hasten therefore, ye virgins, approach, ye widows, come near, ye married also, running into the odor of the ointments of the virgin Godeleva. For in her the exemplars of the ancients are set before us revived, worthily to be imitated. For neither that Queen ^f, to see the wisdom of Solomon, coming to Jerusalem from the uttermost bounds of the earth, would I easily believe to have brought more precious kinds of aromatics, than she brought for the edification of our militant Church. For in her it appeared that the faith of the Patriarchs, the hope of the Prophets, the charity of the Apostles, the constancy of the Martyrs, the parsimony of the Confessors, virginal chastity, and the piety of the married were not wanting.

[68] For this [was] a wise virgin and one of the number of the prudent, and deservedly compared with holy women. who, like another Rebecca, a humbly obsequious young girl, most comely and unknown to a man, deciding more safely with Ruth, following Naomi, to sojourn under want in the people of God, than to abound in pleasures among her domestics. This, I say, is that Hebrew widow, who in the waters of graces, the head of the prince of pride being crushed, made confusion in the house of Nebuchadnezzar, prudently choosing, in the crossroad of this world, with the just Tamar, to be assigned for an hour among infamous and vile little women, that, the seed of grace being received from the excellent Judah, she might bring forth a spiritual offspring; rather than, crowned with the leaves of secular pomp, to wither away with a sterile flower. This finally is that blessed married woman, whom, breathed upon by a heavenly spirit, the Apostle with presaging heart brought forth [as] to come, saying: The unbelieving man is saved by the faithful woman. Blessed indeed and worthy of praiseworthy memory [art] thou typical Abigail, who reconciledst thy malicious husband Nabal, King David being appeased by prayers and the work of piety: but much more blessed than thou [is] the holy married woman Godeleva, who bore the contumelious savagery of her husband Bertulf, not only with most perfect patience unto death, but also, endowed with heavenly piety, conquering evil in good, by merits and prayers obtained for him both grace in the present, and glory in the future, leaving to all the married a most illustrious exemplar of imitation.

ANNOTATA.

CAPUT VIII.

The last counsel of Bertulf about taking his wife out of the way: the deed committed to two impious servants, by whom in the dead of night she is strangled. Various miracles wrought before and after the martyrdom and in the burial.

[69] Counsel being taken about taking away his wife. The fame therefore of the renowned name of blessed Godeleva being divulged through the neighboring peoples, while she enjoyed the frequent address of visitors, Bertulf suspects that much is derogated from his fame, and, fearing the penalties threatened him, daring neither to take away access from those flowing to her, nor to redouble notable grievances on his wife, wounded with grave wrath, revolved many nefarious things with sad heart, by what kind of death she might be slain, and he freed, and might be able more secretly to take her away from the face of the earth. Hacca and Lambert therefore being summoned, the executors of all his iniquity, drawing deep sighs from the bottom of his heart, he pretended with wicked complaints that he was tormented with ineffable griefs, and attenuated with so great straits of sadness on account of his wife's presence, that he could take neither food nor sleep. But they, whose feet [are] swift to shed blood, showing themselves voluntary for every deed, after several bloody conferences of their faction, at last concluded with a most cruel counsel, that, Bertulf absenting himself, black night now plucking the middle of the world's rest, the innocent young girl being called from her chamber on some fictitious occasion, they would strangle her with their own hands, a noose of a napkin being knotted about her virginal neck, forthwith replacing her orderly in her bed; that while the household should find her, as it were reclining, in a bedchamber having no signs of the inflicted death, they might suppose that she had passed away by her own unexpected death: for, the guilt of so great a crime being detected, they themselves paying worthy penalties, would fall into the pit which they had made.

[70] Bertulf, soothing her with feigned flatteries, To which so impious counsel Bertulf the murderer giving prompt assent, on a set day, when the sun crossed the mid convexity of heaven, he approached his blessed wife sitting in her chamber, where, the door being closed upon her, she prayed the Father in secret, with a very cheerful countenance, and, constraining [her] with an amorous, as it seemed, embrace, compelled [her] to sit beside him, although resisting out of reverence; and drawing grave sobs from his deep breast, speaking guile in his heart and mouth, he cherished her with a sweet, as it seemed, address, saying: I grieve, my Godeleva, dearest wife, most vehemently, that, affected with so great injuries, I have hitherto persecuted thee with such hatreds, incited by diabolical instinct; plainly promising amendment with inviolable faith, I earnestly implore with inmost prayer the condescension of thy indulgence. And truly for the cause of this matter, I have already for some time interposed the remedies of a knowing and honorable matron, not ignorant of our dissension; repenting by her information, I think that the fomentations of so great spite emanated from the impious fountain of my breast. Yet I understand that these truculent ministers of iniquity, Hacca and Lambert, raged against thee with revilings of contumelies much greater than my mandates had exacted, on which matter they too, chastised with grave reproaches by the same matron, confounded by the guilt of their wickedness, fearing our presence, flee.

[71] Of this prudent matron therefore, about to come for the reformation of our peace, he lies that [their minds must be conciliated,] I pray, my most beloved lady Godeleva, thou too, giving thyself to her faith, obey, that, our hearts being roused in the glue of mutual love, we may be able thenceforth to enjoy the concord long wished-for. To whom the most blessed virgin: Far be it, she said, my most beloved lord, that one adorned with the insignia of the Christian religion should in any way believe that these things can salutarily be done by the charm of women. By no means, said Bertulf, will my beloved suspect that this honest and so devout matron rests on any vain whisper of charms, or on the wicked frauds of superstitions: nay rather by prayers and supplications, we know that she has requested the aid of the Holy Spirit, that those who implored her help might be clothed with virtue from on high. Wherefore in the deep silence of the coming night, our servants Hacca and Lambert leading her, she has promised that she will come, that, the occasion of all sinister opinion and human murmur being removed, together vigilant in prayer, you may direct pure and living affects to God. Nor did I esteem that I must in any way be absent from the salutary works, unless an unexpected business compelling, by which I cannot deny my presence to the town of Bruges, at the peril of my head, I must forthwith depart.

[72] In this manner, his discourses being softened above oil, if she commit herself to two servants: while Bertulf deluded the holy virgin, and speaks with a feigned breast; inasmuch as his inner parts were full of guile and fallacy. Although it is difficult not to betray a crime by the countenance, yet the simple and innocent young girl herself, judging that these things proceeded from a good heart, answered: I am, she said, the creature of almighty God, but joined to thee by the law of matrimony: wherefore by whatever means, the sincerity of faith and the honor of God (to the direction of whose will I ever commit myself) being safe, the persevering and holy peace of our marriage may be restored, I do not refuse to undergo salutary remedies. The coming therefore of the aforesaid matron, whom he was lying about, as at the set hour, namely in which by the impious tormentors she was to be called from her little chamber and slain; the malicious Bertulf, amid bland colloquies continually revolving guiles and dire wickedness in his breast, thence made a full imitator of the betrayer, constraining her with an amorous, as it seemed, embrace, fixed on her the first and the last kiss of the conjugal bond, namely he who was hitherto not seen to have approached his wife at all, and forthwith bidding farewell, not about to see her from this time until the mortal spirit should govern i.e. animate his limbs, girt himself for the journey.

[73] he himself meanwhile runs out to Bruges Yet first, Hacca and Lambert being found, the ministers of all cruelty, setting forth in order with joyful boasting how, circumventing his wife with a guileful tongue, he had mocked her simple innocence, he covenanted, if they faithfully committed the work to execution, that he would give them copious money.

The opportune hour therefore which he had determined for Godeleva being intimated to them, he departed, as if ignorant of the crime, to be recalled when the crime was perpetrated. O the horrendous iniquity of a criminal soul! O most wicked treason! the kiss, which is a sign of reconciliation, thou didst inflict; making it the instrument of guile, first pressing thy polluted lips on the sacred mouth of so great a virgin, and thou dost not feel her virtue! But those infernal slaves, vehemently rejoicing over the iniquity, inasmuch as their venal hands were for a deed where, there [was] right, where the greatest reward was esteemed, promised all things. O the wicked wickedness of an evil mind! which, conquering the betrayer Judas in crime, thou wast found worse than the wicked assessor Pilate; of whom the one by greedy cupidity, the other by ambitious fear delivered the Just [One]. But thou, by the mere spite of malicious perversity, didst stir up the criminal hands of the impious by reward, to the shedding of innocent blood.

[74] the impious artificer of the whole slaying. For shame, O Bertulf! of thy degenerate and crafty heart; unworthily plainly art thou swollen at being born of noble blood, who, fostering worse than vices, forsakest thine own origin. Nobility of mind altogether knows not to hide guile covered by the countenance, nor to proffer poisons painted with fraudulent honey. Alas! how fallacious, how crafty, once thy endeavors toward the Virgin's wedlock! How feigned thy love, how perfidious, how covenant-breaking the words of thy conjugal bond! for fluctuating with venal and gainful affect toward wealth, and courting the most copious dowered riches of the noble young girl, thou didst so deceive her parents, that it seemed to thee great, while great things were given: now, as if disdaining her withered, thou teachest by deed how faith broken, lacking a root, [is] how ignorant to stand. Are these the insignia of thy nobility, that, covering the guile of thy nefarious crime with innumerable arts, with thy deadly hands wet with the blood of the innocent young girl, thou shouldst violate by so great a deed the rights of the Sacramental coupling? Or knowest thou not, most wretched [man], how greatly the Lord will abominate a bloody and guileful man, and, virtue being removed, the honor of nobility migrates into exile? Since indeed every vice of the mind is believed to have in itself a crime the greater, the greater [is] he who sins. Believe me, it is a noble thing to succor the fallen, and to put one's fingers under a weary chin; not to plunge the face of the swimmer in the liquid waters.

[75] In the middle of the night drawn out of her chamber, Meanwhile therefore the sun rushes down, and the mists began to bring back the twilight of night; now the executors of the cruel counsel Lambert and Hacca, watching the agreed hour of the deed with impious vigils, like roaring lions with bloody mouth, thirsting for the pious blood of the maiden, it displeased them that the effect of their iniquity be deferred even for a moment. Therefore while a deep sleep of birds and beasts held the wearied animals through all the lands, and now the humid night touched the mid goal of heaven, they lightly pushing the Virgin's little door, asserted with lying tongue that the honest matron whom Bertulf had indicated was present at the threshold. Not yet, as we believe, had the holy young girl, about to give late rest to her limbs, lain down, but prostrate with her whole body on the ground, now beating her breast with her fists, now bedewing her face with tears, she persevered vigilant in prayer: soon, the garments which she had partly laid aside being resumed, while she said she would come; those truculent tormentors, urging her with importunate admonitions, affirmed that it must be hastened quickly, lest the so venerable woman whom they had brought, affected with the tedium of waiting, departing, the work of all her salvation fail with vain labor. The blessed Virgin therefore, committing herself to the divine will and their faith, lifted her eyes to the heavens, and, tears springing from the deep fountain of her breast, fortifying herself with the seal of the cross, earnestly begged the heavenly protection to be present to her, and clothed in a single little tunic only, lacking sleeves, goes forth, not otherwise than if you should see an innocent little sheep, most simple in meekness, led forth to be tortured forthwith by the dire hands of executioners.

[76] Nor was the marvelous divine power in his Saints wanting, she is strangled by Hacca and Lambert. changing the earth, which the blessed young girl in going out had trodden with her bare soles, as they were, into a pavement, varied with wondrous beauty of flooring; by this new kind of miracle instructing us, that to follow by imitating the footsteps which blessed Godeleva had gone before by her conversation, adorned with a wondrous variety of virtues, as with precious pearls, was most grateful to God; which although it lay hidden from the eyes whom malice had blinded, yet by certain experience we have afterward learned it ascertained ^a. Receiving her therefore, coming forth from the little door of her chamber, the detestable ministers of the crime, like lions prepared for prey, and like whelps of lions dwelling in hidden places, knotting the napkin which they had stretched out into a noose about her milky neck, with beastly rage heaped force upon cruelty, and, straining the sacred throat of the Virgin at once with their deadly hands, they strove to deprive [her] of voice together with life. The consecrated young girl slips down lifeless, and, the rosy color leaving her once pale countenance, all her limbs slip down cold in death. Whom, collapsed, soon snatching, into a certain well of putrefying waters, which lay adjacent for watering the beasts of burden, immersing her holy head with her shoulders, they labored to extinguish with a most savage effort what remained of her vital spirit.

[77] Whereby it happened, that the sacred blood, which by the violence of the punishment had flowed into her throat, The shed blood hardened into a stone, poured out from her mouth into the water, clotted, was hardened into a white stone like lime; white indeed, divinely and manifestly declaring the maiden's inviolate chastity, but a stone, lest, diffused by the mingling of the flowing liquid, it should not lie open to the eyes, how precious in the sight of the Lord [is] the death of his Saints. For although the devotion of many believes that this happened, that if the blessed Virgin had contracted any Egyptian dust by human frailty, she must be expiated by the examen of this element; yet we doubt not another more weighty reason of this heavenly disposition, that, since in the furnace of tribulation, proved like gold in the furnace, she is to be believed to have had nothing to be purged; by the shedding of her so sacred blood, [and] by her blessed death this wave being sanctified, which before had scarcely been potable to the brutes for its corruption, to the praise of God and the honor of the holy Virgin and Martyr, should be made so salutiferous to men, vexed with various infirmities, that, having drunk of it, suddenly obtaining recovery, they should proclaim with inexhaustible proclamations this well of living waters and fountain of life, made such by the merits of holy Godeleva.

[78] and a harmony of angels heard. Moreover the truthful report of very many attested, that that holy soul, loosed from the prison-house of the body, wonderfully enriched with the laurels of red blood, mounted the ethereal kingdoms; that they themselves at the hour of the dead of night heard in the air a harmony of angels of wondrous sweetness ^b. Namely she in whom the passions of Christ ever thus abounded, that, made like to the Crucified in life, even in death, in the most vile place of her passion, extinguished between two wicked [men] by a cruel examen, she was found conformable to him, ought to glory in the heavenly consolations abounding in her, transformed from brightness to brightness. But those who had heard, not yet having knowledge of the things done, were utterly ignorant what cause underlay [it]. The most truculent lictors therefore, considering that the blessed young girl had now expired, carrying the dead little body, washed from stains, back to the chamber, replace [it] in its place with much diligence, esteeming that they would escape unpunished, if their crime, concealed by such a veil, should lie hidden from the knowledge of men. But too foolish, O thou servile impiety, and plainly blind [is] thy savage perversity. Does not he who fashioned the eye consider, or he who made the ear not hear? Plainly the eyes of the Lord [are] brighter than the sun, looking around all the ways of men; nor is there any creature invisible in his sight. The innocent blood of the virgin too, which thou didst cruelly shed, crying from the earth, strikes the ears of the divine severity with its appeal, that when it shall have received the time of justice, judging, all creation may be armed for vengeance on it.

[79] The lifeless body being found, Meanwhile while the sun had brought forth the genial light to wretched mortals, unlocking works and labors; things being now uncovered by the light, the domestics are moved with amazement, not perceiving Godeleva coming forth from her little chamber, to whom it had ever been of custom, when the dawn now sprinkled the lands with new light, unconquered [and] prompt to labor, to be at her tasks, or by favor of the divine offices to flee to the church, or, surveying the court, with palms continually doubled, frequently to look up to the heavens, [and] to murmur the devout little words of prayers. Truly, the mature day being now rolled round and reddening, and the flaming light striking mid Olympus, the Virgin not yet awaking from the heavy sleep, amazement was increased by wonder: since indeed it lay hidden from them, that she, stripped of her clayey tabernacle, and clothed with the stole of immortality, shining with ineffable beauty, snatched from the hands of the impious, dancing among the heavenly troops of the royal young girls in the delights of inviolable joy, was unwilling to return to the wretched miseries of her former sojourn. With a familiar boldness therefore certain persons, breaking into the threshold of her chamber, having entered, while they behold [her] covered with garments, lying on the couch, thinking their lady lulled in sleep, tried to rouse [her] with a pious push.

[80] But feeling the cold and rigid limbs of the lifeless little body, various judgments concerning her death. forthwith troubled in mind they raise a huge groan, their breasts being beaten to the stars. Hence soon the unhappy rumor is spread through the whole land, and, the crowds of neighbors running together, they are troubled among themselves with manifold discourse; some esteeming the young girl's sudden death casual, others reporting her death forestalled by too great affliction of miseries: some, holding suspect Bertulf's wonted biting bitterness toward her, muttered that she had been violently slain; yet fearing the man's power, they dared to utter nothing in public concerning this matter; chiefly since no testimonies of the inflicted death appeared in the body, save the circle of purple color on the neck. Yet by concordant assertion, many affirming that through the night they had heard in their ears sweet-sounding consonances of voices from the air, they doubted not that at that very hour her holy soul, loosed from the corruptible body, had mounted the ethereal mansions among the joyful troops of the heavenly spirits.

[81] The necessaries for tending and burying the funeral being dispatched, Bertulf returning tends the funeral, amid groans her family replacing her rigid limbs on the bier, Bertulf enters, and soon falling down, embraces the dead woman about the middle, and with feigned heart, himself the author of the whole crime, pretending that he poured copious tears, while he pressed fraudulent kisses on her sacred lips, consulting more for his honor than for the truth, attended by a great troop of nobles, accompanying the last honor of the deceased, performing the funeral pomps in solemn order, procured the blessed little body to be buried in the church of Gistel, in the third year from the contracted marriage ^c, on the day before the Nones of July, on the second feria, which was the octave of the Apostles Peter and Paul, in the year from the Lord's Incarnation one thousand and seventy, of Henry the fourth the Emperor the thirteenth, of Philip the second of that name King of the Franks the seventh year, and of Baldwin the Peaceful, eighth Count of Flanders, the third and last, for he too died in the same year.

[82] Moreover by no means did Christ Jesus, the virtue and wisdom of God, disdain to be present at the obsequies of his spouse, the flour being multiplied by a miracle, declaring, as in life and in death, so also in the funeral, the illustrious sanctity of the Virgin by certain manifest miracles. For, grain failing Bertulf for the pious refreshment of the beggars, it behooved some bought elsewhere to be brought by a swift dispatch. But, I know not what hindrance of the miller [*] intervening, both the wonted religion of the obsequies wavered, and the famished want of the needy was in peril. Wonderful to say! By the exigency of the merits of her who while she lived was affected with heartfelt affects toward the poor, from the abundant largess of the divine propitiation it happened, that, the grain being multiplied,

and by the miller, without labor, suddenly turned into flour, neither was the abundance of the seller diminished, nor was the want of the hungering, the loaves being soon baked, defrauded of its hope. Finally to the sights of many standing at the burial of the holy Martyr, who were of purer life, it lay open that over her noble remains a column of heavenly light of wondrous splendor ^d had glided down, almighty God insinuating by this ocular document, that the little body, which had furnished a worthy lodging to that holy soul, had by her inhabitation obtained so great an efficacy of heavenly virtue, that it could not only repair the discomforts of men flowing together with the devotion of faith, but even inanimate things, touching it with even a slight contact, are known by experience to have felt the admirable power of the hidden deity.

[83] For the earth of her burial ^e, which had touched the coffin of the sacred little body, the devotion of certain simple persons gathering, and having reposited [it] in a reverent place, after a little vehemently marveled to be turned into precious gems. Of which matter the faith, since it seemed difficult to believe, the venerable monk Drogo, first writer of the Virgin's life, inasmuch as he himself had seen it with his eyes, establishing by truthful testimony, cut away from the hearts of those following every wound of doubt. Truly it became her to be extolled by testimonies of signs of such divine condescension, who, squared and polished by the copious carvings of tribulations on earth, the most precious Evangelical pearl herself, had merited to be fitted to the mansions of the heavenly edifice, that, like a lamp set upon a candlestick, she might be able to shine to all who are in the house. For this cause too, soon after her blessed martyrdom, the divine regard irradiating from above, we believe that several and great miracles happened, of which if I should wish to describe the number and stupendous order, this our tract, made a tedium to readers, would exceed the measure of the promised narration [f]. Yet four out of many we have deemed worth the labor to touch by briefly running over.

ANNOTATA.

* read "of the miller."

CAPUT IX.

Various miracles at the tomb, a signal one in the blind daughter of Bertulf by his second wife, recovering her sight; the greatest in him himself, converted to penitence; the foundation of the monastery of virgins from his goods; the pretended canonization made at Rome.

A certain [man] had a son contracted from his first cradle, Algotus by name, who, greatly trusting in the merits of the holy virgin and martyr Godeleva, At the tomb a contracted [boy is healed;] the miserable offspring being carried to her sepulchre, prostrate together with him in prayer, after a little, marveling that he whom he had brought destitute of limbs rose sound from the ground, loosed his mouth and heart to the praise of God and the martyr Godeleva. This youth, afterward instructed in sacred letters, when he had grown into manly strength, obtained the rank of the diaconate.

[85] A certain other contracted woman before the door of the monastery of St. Trudo, likewise a contracted [woman.] asking the grace of healing, had now lain for nine years; but, many having obtained the benefit of recovery, she alone, by divine providence, was reserved for the merits and prayers of blessed Godeleva. For hearing how great benefits the merciful Lord imparted to the wretched through his handmaid, she procured herself to be carried to her sepulchre, whereat prostrate in tearful prayer, straightway feeling herself healed, paying devout thanksgivings to the Virgin, she returned strong on foot to her native soil.

[86] A certain [man] on the Sabbath day, at the hour when it was least lawful, Ears cleaving to a hand are loosed; had with blind temerity presumed to gather ears in the field, to whose palms a handful of ears cleaved with so firm a connection, that the strength of him wishing to cast them off with his other hand, so far from profiting, wholly failed him. Wonderful indeed, soon that wretch recognizing his guilt in the deed, fleeing to the tomb [*] of the Virgin, and prostrate on the ground, offered the holocaust of a contrite heart, asking pardon and grace. The prayer not yet finished, that rigor of the fingers slackening, giving free fall to the ears, rendered the man both sound, and more cautious for the future against a like crime.

[87] The priest of the parish, on a certain day, intimating to the people a feast to be solemnly celebrated, as also a staff affixed to another woman's hand. had announced that all servile work must be abstained from. There was among the hearers a certain woman greedy of bodily gain, but utterly alien and void of the fear of God. She, making little of the priest's command, when she had judged it very opportune to stir the dye in the vessel which she had prepared; a staff being taken, on the very feast day, pursuing in work what she had conceived in mind, she plunged [it] into the liquid matter. Very marvelous, suddenly the instrument so cleaved to both hands, that neither by extension, nor by contraction of the arms, could it seem able to be loosed by any force. The household runs up, the house re-echoes with rumors, soon the garrulous fame flies through all the neighbors. Several convened; some laboring to wrench the staff violently from her hands, others considering the manifest miracle in the deed, they persuaded that the merits of the holy martyr Godeleva must be invoked. Meanwhile, many running together from every side to so unwonted a spectacle of divine vengeance, disagreeing among themselves with a long wrestling, the wretched woman is at last compelled, the staff continually cleaving inseparably to her palms, to flee to the relics of the holy martyr Godeleva, and there prostrating herself with her whole heart with tears upon her face, after an inmost accusation of her temerity, amid the devout words of prayers her joints are loosed, and, all seeing, the staff falling, the woman is restored to health. Those men therefore who had convened, so huge a prodigy being seen, praising together with one voice God in his holy virgin and martyr Godeleva, felt by this manifest sign, of how great merit she was held in heaven, [and] how the almighty Lord had willed her to be cultivated with so inviolable a veneration on earth: for by the instance of her prayers he bestowed both grace on sinful souls, and health on diseased bodies, and salutiferous prosperity on the doubtful successes of men.

[88] To the holy Virgin and Martyr Hail therefore, O thou Godeleva, holy virgin, mirror of patience, exemplar of humility, ornament of virtues, true offspring of Jove ^a, sole Martyr of our Flanders, prompt consoler of every soul devoted to thee. What worthy praises to render thee, I know not; for neither does mortal life belong to thee, nor does thy voice sound like that of a human. Thou art a Goddess certainly, thou the sister of Phoebus and one of the blood of the nymphs: thee the Stygian lakes trembled at, thee the porter of Orcus, lying upon his half-eaten bones in his bloody cave.

[89] a pious deprecation. Let plainly Boulogne herself, the begetter of so noble a Virgin, rejoice, let Flanders, adorned with her virtues and relics, exult and be glad: too happy and blessed [art] thou, O Gistel, preserver of so great a treasure, yet most unhappy, if, not a worthy cultivatress of the heavenly gift, thou be accused of crime as ungrateful. Receive therefore, O thou most consecrated young girl, whatever these thanksgivings unequal to thy merits, and when thou hast received [our] vows, excuse our faults. Admit our prayers into the sanctuary of thy hearing, and bring back to us the antidote of reconciliation; let that be excusable through thee, which through thee we bring in, let that be obtainable, which with faithful mind we ask. Excuse what we fear, give back what we ask; assist, ready for the vows of those asking, and repay to all the wished-for effect. Let it be thy study, assiduously to pray for the people of God, thou who, a virgin betrothed to a man, thence widowed by repudiation, yet ever inviolate in body, at last laureled with a glorious martyrdom, didst merit of thy spouse Christ to be led into the wine-cellar, where, given drink by the draught of the torrent of divine pleasure, most full thou shalt be sated with perennial sweetness from the plenty of his house.

[90] A girl born to Bertulf of his second marriage, blind Finally, soon when the funeral of holy Godeleva and the ceremonies of the obsequies were dispatched, her memory perished with a sound i.e. utterly, although, for the honesty of the world, Bertulf seemed to grieve his wife's death by a mourning garment. Since indeed where there was not true love but disgust, he rejoiced that [she] was taken away whom he spurned with his whole affect. Contracting therefore a second marriage, not long after in time, he begot a daughter, comely indeed of face, yet blind from the first beginnings of her birth. Who, after she was grown somewhat older, when she had noticed her father's impiety toward his first wife being calumniated among the neighboring women, and that the cause of her own blindness must without doubt be imputed to his sins against the holy woman; although still a little girl, namely nine years old, yet in her senses, as [is] the more common condition of the blind, she was hoary enough; the eyes of her mind being now illustrated with the new light of faith, conceiving great confidence in blessed Godeleva, she decreed by private devotion to invoke her merits.

[91] It happened therefore, that when on a certain night she had given herself to sleep, by the merits of St. Godeleva recovers her sight, a woman crowned with hope stood by her; she seemed clothed with garments whiter than snow, who admonished her with a pious address, that, if going to the waters in which, suffocated, she had expired, she should dip her eyes, for the devotion which she had conceived toward the Saint, by the merit of her martyrdom, to the honor of God she would recover her sight. Which vision when the girl had reported to her mother, she, confounding the young girl with a hard reproach, as if for folly, affirmed that dreams, as vain and frivolous, must not be regarded, nor could healings be given by the merits of Godeleva, who, liable to many iniquities, was presumed by all to have departed hence not without demerits. But the girl, instructed by the truthful oracle, that not at every time must all things be believed, chiefly since the just person is often accused by an unjust infamy, passing over these curses of her mother with a deaf ear, proposed with a silent thought within herself, to commit to effect the admonition which she had received from heaven by an undoubted vision. Opportunity therefore being got, when on a certain day she had by earnest prayer asked to be led by her young companions to this well, thrice washing the little sockets of her eyes, deprived of light from birth, with sincere faith, pure devotion, and great confidence, according to the promise of the holy Virgin and Martyr, divinely illustrated, she obtained the clearest light of seeing.

[92] Soon loosing her tongue to the praise of the Mother of God and of blessed Godeleva, her father not yet having faith in the miracle: she proclaimed with a loud voice that she was freed. The fame of this miracle, dispersed widely through the cities, excited very many to the reverence of the holy Virgin, although she ought not yet to be cultivated with public veneration, being inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints by Apostolic authority. But Bertulf hearing these things was vehemently astounded, and, [his] conscience

goading [him], fluctuated within himself with a hard heat of thoughts. And indeed he would now have begun to feel piously concerning blessed Godeleva, unless, seduced by the wicked persuasion of his wife, continually disparaging the virtues of the holy Virgin, and delivered into a reprobate sense, he had judged that the prodigy which had happened, though done by the operation of the divine commiseration or a casual event, was yet by no means to be ascribed to the merits of Godeleva. O nefarious detraction! most wicked daughter of virulent spite, who, since thou canst not deny benefits, in whatever way thou triest to pervert them, and diminishest the praises which it is not right to hide. Ensnared therefore by this pestiferous execration, the man, until this second wife departed from human affairs, void of grace, gave no faith to blessed Godeleva, [her] sanctity now manifest by prodigies. Yet the merciful God himself, willing not the death of a sinner, but rather that he be converted and live, by the prayers and merits of the glorious Virgin and Martyr deigned to heap grace upon grace for his illumination.

[93] but by a new prodigy of the shifts sewn by the Saint, For his second wife herself having entered the way of all flesh, when on a certain day he had sent a servant, carrying cloth for making the linen garments which are called shirts, to Gistel, and he, now reaching the middle of the journey, was near the place in which the pious Godeleva, still depressed by the miseries of our sojourn, whether going to church, or returning thence, had been wont to refresh her wearied little body with a little rest; he himself lifting his eyes, beheld a lady of venerable majesty sitting under a tree, which there with its dense fronds furnished a shady repose to wearied limbs. Who, since she was adorned with a heavenly mantle, resplendent with a most bright brightness, seemed in no way of our corruptible age. A sudden trembling therefore seizes the limbs of the marveling youth, his eyes grew stiff, his hair stood up bristling, his voice stuck in his throat, and, [she] soothing with a bland address him trying to depart in flight, investigates the cause of his journey; which, with a fearful heart intimating, she subjoined: No one, dearest, in the artifice of this work, wilt thou find so conformable to the desire of thy master as me. Therefore committing the cloth to my faith, return home, fearing no loss, and when thou hast reported to Bertulf what thou hast seen, straightway returning, thou shalt bring back the finished work with joy. But the servant, surrounded by a certain horror of heart, perceiving something of deity in the deed, chiefly since he beheld beside her her gloves, star-bearing with wondrous beauty, hanging from the rays of the sun ^b, out of reverence for the woman, by no means dared to contradict the reasonable petition.

[94] Offering therefore the cloth, returned home, drawing grave groans from the bottom of his breast, at last contrite with his whole heart, he narrates what had happened; by which unheard-of chance Bertulf vehemently shaken, a cold tremor shakes his limbs; yet dissembling the matter with his countenance, he sent back the servant, affected with a biting reproof, as one who had committed the precious cloth to unknown hands. He, the divine Virgin being found in the same place, receives the finished garments which he had given. Seized therefore with greater amazement, while with anxious heart he investigated her name, she answered: Let not the knowledge of my name move thee, son, for the artifice of this work will at all events manifest my person to thy master. To him therefore bearing these things thou shalt announce, that, not ungrateful for the benefits of almighty God, converted to the remedies of penitence, he fit the house of his conscience to divine grace. To his salvation, if there shall be need of anything, the aids of my prayers will not be wanting to him. Then bidding farewell to the servant with a devout recommendation, withdrawn from his eyes, she passed with her flight a huge arch under the clouds. All these things therefore the servant announcing, as soon as Bertulf beheld the artifice with the folding, protesting it the work of Godeleva, vehemently astounded, his blood congeals cold with dread; yet pressing dire grief in his heart, thinking that he would still find her, hastening to the place, he goes weeping and moistens his face with great tears. But she now not being found, he returns, and groaning more deeply, gave these voices from the bottom of his breast. Alas too cruel, virgin Godeleph, innocent, thou paidst the penalty thyself: plainly whoever I, wretched, affected thy body with griefs, I will not suffer [it] unavenged. For what worthy retributions could I render to such piety? Thou who knewest me guilty of so great a crime, wast willing nonetheless to bestow these pious returns.

[95] Taking therefore thenceforth forthwith sound counsel, Bertulf, after a most strait penitence, a monk at St. Winnoc's, piously dies. now feeling himself illumined in the eyes of his mind, assigning all the substance which he had possessed to his daughter, who had also recovered corporal sight by the merits of blessed Godeleva, to be distributed to pious causes, himself setting out to the Holy Land to war against the Saracens ^c, after manifoldly suffering voluntarily miseries in satisfaction for so great guilt, after the illustrious deeds of his warfare performed there, after various losses inflicted on the enemies of Christ, returned from beyond the sea; then at last, after a devout visitation of the thresholds of the Apostles, returned into Flanders: and soon leaving the dry world with its fallen flower, and the splendid estates of earthly possessions, humbly took up the yoke of Christ on the mountain of St. Winnoc, under the discipline of the rule of St. Benedict, made an egregious emulator of him. For being an exemplar of laudable abstinence, of profound humility, and of singular charity, he ceased not day and night to expiate the eyes of his mind with irremediable i.e. ceaseless tears, showing so great contrition of his committed crime, that frequently, to his own contumely, and to the honor of the holy virgin and martyr Godeleva, deploring on a public occasion his wicked cruelty of spite toward her, he revealed to the brethren certain secret things, which otherwise would have lain hidden. At last after a laudable perseverance of long penitence, lulled by a devout death, he was found to have worn a heavy cuirass over his bare body, which, by no means laid aside for many years, the flesh which had grown over the prominent rings, attested. Wherefore it is piously to be believed, that this man, once unbelieving, was saved by the faithful woman. She like the morning star, but he like the evening star, illustrating the way of penitence, now together enjoy the rewards of blessed immortality. Which too seems undoubtedly to be established, since after many years his little body, which, reposited in a leaden coffin, had been commended to the earth, was found utterly incorrupt; having an inscription of this kind inscribed on flint with a chisel: Here lies Bertulf, once the husband of the kind Lady St. Godeleva.

[96] Moreover his daughter, a virgin devoted to God, dedicating to God with a most prompt will all the abundance of her paternal inheritance, for the remission of his sins, His daughter founds a monastery of virgins. founded in the place of the martyrdom of the spouse of Christ a devout monastery of holy Virgins. Whereby it happened, that that well, which the holy Virgin had sanctified by death and blood, enclosed within the circuit of the convent, girded round with a stone wall, after many years, as we have said before, has conferred on many languid bodies the wished-for recovery by the draught drawn thence.

[97] In the years therefore succeeding after the passion of the holy martyr Godeleva, the church of the parish of Gistel being vacant, since the collation of it pertains alternately to the Bishop of Tournai and the abbot of St. Andrew near Bruges, The life of the Saint written by Drogo a certain monk of that convent, Drogo by name, a man at all events eminent both in knowledge and in religion, undertook the care of it, his Prelate commanding, driving the flock subjected to him with much diligence into the way of the commandments of God. In his times, both the frequent prodigies of miracles and public fame attesting to the sanctity of the Virgin, at the earnest instances of many honorable persons, the same venerable Drogo was induced to deign to undergo the labor of writing, digested in a useful style, the blessed course of her life, of what births she was chiefly born, in what disciplines she was educated as an infant, to whom finally she was delivered in wedlock; thence with how great straits of miseries she was affected, by whose frauds at last she was martyred; and in all these with how copious ornaments of virtues she shone forth ^d. For it was worthy, that she who, prevented in life by so copious a sweetness of benediction, was now without doubt believed to be exalted in heaven, being inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints, should be cultivated with becoming veneration on earth.

[98] Bishop Radbodo reviewing, To which he, to the honor of almighty God and of the holy virgin and martyr Godeleva, assenting to the pious desires of the people, inasmuch as he was a devout man and an eminent zealot of truth, by diligent investigation inquired the things which were opportune for the narration, from those who by the judgment of all were held approved and truthful, according as they had seen with their eyes, heard with their ears, and had confirmed by oath that they were so. The things inquired, also reduced into a tract in the manner of a letter, he transmitted to the Lord Radbodo, Bishop of Noyon and Tournai, a man plainly most renowned in faith and doctrine, to be examined, corrected, and approved; thus taking his exordium: The benignity of the Almighty ^e calls each sex to his mercy. But the subsequent tenor elucidated the Legend of the blessed Martyr: at last subjoining, that, examined by his condescension, if he should decree any things worthy in his judgment of the edification of the faithful, the superfluous being cut away with the file of correction, but the less shining being illustrated with the light of reason, [and] strengthened by pontifical authority, to whomsoever they should come, they might be held ratified: nor ought he to be reprehended, or these things less confirmed, because he had learned only by hearing what he wrote, since very many authors also of the sacred Scriptures, now authentic by solemn approbation, are known to have very often done the same.

[99] But the egregious Prelate, when he had read these things, although the venerable Drogo, writing them, was held a man worthy of all faith, inasmuch as a religious professor of so great perfection; nevertheless, for cutting away every wound of doubt from the hearts of believers, sent chief messengers to the notable [men] of the town of Gistel, is said to have procured the canonization at Rome. who, ventilating the matter with a repeated examination, should announce the sincere truth of the deed. Which messengers faithfully executing the commands, when they had reported those things ratified by the undoubted testimony of truthful [men], the holy Prelate, they being confirmed by the commendation of his authority, presented them [f] to the supreme Pontiff and his brother Cardinals to be approved. Who, with all the Prelates then residing in the Roman curia, scrutinizing the matter still with a more mature and profound inquiry, when they had found the chosen spouse of God, a Virgin and Martyr, worthy of all veneration, whom almighty God had willed to glorify with such and so great indications of sanctity; by unanimous consent inscribing her in the catalogue of the Saints, committed to the aforesaid Bishop her sacred bones to be translated from the dust of the earth, and to be exalted to public adoration. Who, executing the business benevolently, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1084, in the eighth year of the Lord Hildebrand, who is also Gregory VII, the Roman Pontiff, the twenty-seventh of Henry IV the Emperor, the twenty-first of Philip II King of the Franks, and the twelfth year of Robert, eleventh Count of Flanders, surnamed of Friesland, which was after the deposition of the blessed virgin and Martyr Godeleva the fourteenth year, on the third of the Kalends of August, on the day of the Moon Monday, with a devout exhibition, as was fitting, of ceremonies, elevating from the earth that noble and precious treasure, namely the holy little body, placed [it] in a becoming place of veneration, to the glory and praise of almighty God, who lives and reigns three and one, blessed through immense ages.

ANNOTATA.

* read "little tomb."

MIRACLES

Collected from various sources.

Godeleva, Virgin Martyr, at Gistel in Flanders (S.)

FROM VARIOUS [SOURCES].

Preadmonition of the editor.

In the last paragraph of our Commentary we referred hither all the miracles, of which neither Drogo nor the Anonymous made mention in the Lives here premised. They are compiled by various writers, The order of those which are here described. but not resting on the same faith, since it is not established who compiled the great Belgic Legend, who moreover the lesser, and from what monuments. That the older ones are digested confusedly enough, is perspicuous: those which happened in the sixteenth century and toward the beginning of the seventeenth are distinguished by notes of the times. The oft-praised Cleric of Gistel, for the year 1506, narrated in a succinct style only those which, within a few years, as he says, he had observed almost with his own eyes, and which never came to the notice of the Belgic writers. The most recent were supplied both by the Magistracy of Gistel, and by the Godelevian Nuns, consigned by manuscript testimonies, which gloriously demonstrate that the fountain of graces through the merits of St. Godeleva has not yet dried up in our age. Into four classes therefore must be divided the miracles which we shall here deliver, of which some we have said are expressed in pictures in the temple of Gistel. The first will contain those older ones from the Belgic lives, distinguished by no note of the times. The second will give the little commentary of the Cleric of Gistel, up to the year 1506. Into the third I shall cast those from the aforesaid Belgic lives which are said to have happened in the rest of the sixteenth century and toward the beginning of the seventeenth. Finally in the last class will be gathered those done more recently, the longer instruments themselves, rendered not word for word, but interpreting according to the substance of the matter. Nor did I think this must be more scrupulously distinguished, although here and there it be indicated whether the miracles were done in the monastery, or in the temple of Gistel: all are referred to the glory of the same Saint.

CLASS I.

Distinguished by no note of the times.

[A youth punished for his scurrility recovers health at the sepulchre of St. Godeleva.] A youth of Aldenburg, who had been sent to neighboring Gistel for the cause of business, returning to his own town, found some insolent tavern-frequenters occupied with gaming, dancing, and other sports and follies. They ask the youth, what new thing he brought from Gistel? He answers: Those who go to Gistel with sound step, return thence lame; those who rejoice in keen sight, become blind; those who go sound, contract disease, or are mutilated in some limb. This namely the audacious buffoon blabbed, deriding the miracles of St. Godeleva. But the divine vengeance was present; for scarcely had he uttered the last words, when his mouth was straightway twisted round even to his ears; and he who a little before had held God and the Saints in mockery, now dumb, like a fool, was the byword of the crowd. Meanwhile fear seized the bystanders; but his parents and friends were affected with great grief, seeking a manner by which they might help the wretch. No readier remedy could be counseled, than that they should lead the youth to the sepulchre of St. Godeleva, where, when they had with sighs and tears entreated the mercy of God, by the merits of his blessed spouse, whose sacred remains there rest, the youth rose, having recovered health and his former appearance; thanks being given to God and St. Godeleva.

[3] A woman of Gistel, sick and paralytic, was carried to the sepulchre of St. Godeleva, Two women and a submerged boy restored to their former state. the priests celebrated Masses for her, but before they were finished, she herself rose, trembling in all her limbs, and thus restored to health, survived for many years after. Another woman there, laboring with a dry, inflexible arm extended to length, after she had been so affected for a long time, running to the sepulchre of St. Godeleva, escaped free of all discomfort. A certain boy in the village called Moerkerke was drawn into the water and suffocated; which when the mother learned, with many laments and great wailing she invoked God and St. Godeleva, that she might receive her boy alive. Soon she draws the boy from the water, who, scarcely half an hour having elapsed, was restored to life. Him the mother led to the sepulchre of St. Godeleva, to testify her gratitude to God and to his spouse.

[4] There follows the miracle of the three thieves, who had spoiled the Saint's reliquary, A religious virgin laboring with the falling sickness is wondrously healed. but since we have treated of it above §9 number 97, there is no reason why it should here be repeated again. We describe the greater Belgic Legend, in which, since the history is narrated too fully concerning a girl laboring with the falling sickness, we shall contract the matter into fewer words. A certain mother, having a daughter comely of body, but affected with an incurable disease, since she dared not give her in marriage, ran to the religious women of St. Godeleva, entreating them with many prayers and promises, that they would admit her daughter. But they tergiversating and objecting that it was divulged by rumor that that virgin labored with the falling sickness, the mother dared to take an oath, that her daughter had never been seized with that disease, and by that pact and by several gifts so baited the nuns, that she at last obtained her wishes. Some time after the mother's deceit appeared, the daughter relapsed into the aforesaid disease, and that so often, that the nuns were compelled to separate her from the rest of the company. There she, consumed with grief, began to meditate either flight from the cloister, or a violent death. Which when she had long revolved in her mind, about to commit her dire counsels well-nigh to execution, St. Godeleva appeared to her in sleep, and confirming the wavering girl by her holy admonitions, sweetly promised that she would straightway be freed from the disease. Hence she, strong in body by the merits of her holy patroness, animated with a new spirit, both strenuously repelled the noxious temptations, and thenceforth most constantly persevered in her religious purpose unto the end of her life. Let the mercy of God be praised, conferring on men so many benefits through his Saints.

[5] Not long after the monastery of Gistel was founded, Those stealing the harvest of the nuns are terrified away. it happened that the sisters gathered the harvest heaped into sheaves, and left it by night in the field. Which when certain rascals had observed, they secretly prepared all things, that they might soon carry off the grain in a boat: but they had scarcely begun to load it, when they observed [it] gradually sinking. The wicked men indeed marveled at this, but proceeding to load the boat, they saw it filled with water, although it was whole and intact. At last, when both it and they were nearly submerged, seized with fear, they asked one another, to whom those fruits belonged, which they had already stolen. But hearing that it was the harvest of the sisters of the monastery of St. Godeleva, fearing the vengeance of God and the Saint, they desisted from their undertaking, about to exercise their robberies elsewhere.

[6] When at Sluis in Flanders a tender virgin had by misfortune lost her sight, A blind girl recovers her sight. her saddened parents vowed that they would visit St. Godeleva in that place where she had undergone martyrdom. Having arrived there, they obtained from the nuns that they might enter the cloister with their blind daughter; where, after prayers poured forth, they led the girl to the well of St. Godeleva, and washed her eyes with the salutiferous water. And behold the blind little girl indicates to her mother that she sees that water. And so all falling on their knees, they glorified God, and rendered him thanks for the benefit received; inasmuch as, sad, they had brought their blind offspring to Gistel, [and], glad, led [her] home seeing. On the occasion of that miracle, the cloister, which no one before could enter, thenceforth lay open to all the sick, who there in great number found ready solaces for their diseases. Blessed be God!

[7] To a mute citizen of Bruges speech is restored. A certain citizen of Bruges, having gone out of the city in the morning at the fourth hour through the gate of St. Catherine, had scarcely accomplished a little of the way, when, suffering a swoon from bodily weakness, he fell into the grass: then returning to himself, he perceived that he was made mute. While the wretch sat there, two men passed by, to whom, when he showed himself tongueless with various signs, he was led home by them. His consternated wife and the whole household invoked St. Godeleva with the highest confidence, a vow being soon conceived of undertaking a pilgrimage to the place of her martyrdom. And so on the morrow, having gone out at the seventh hour in the morning, when they had reached the middle of the way between Gistel and the monastery of St. Godeleva, the mute seemed to feel some solace; but after he came to the well and drank the medicinal water, he straightway recovered his speech, and felt himself free of all infirmity: and thanks being given to God and St. Godeleva, glad with his family he returned to his own. The fame of this miracle was widely divulged, the nuns ringing the bronze bell; and those who had seen or heard praised the Lord, who is marvelous in his Saints.

[8] An infant who had swallowed a needle is freed from it. A five-year-old infant, playing with a rather large needle, by chance swallowed it; whence he was straightway affected with so vehement a grief, that not even a trace of life appeared. The most afflicted mother, finding no human remedy by which to help the dying child, fled to God, and prostrate on the ground, invoking his mercy through the patronage of St. Godeleva, promised that she would visit the place in which the Saint had suffered martyrdom. She felt a present healing; for scarcely had she conceived the vow when, returning to the infant, she observed a motion in him: and a cough following, the needle was emitted by the infant through his throat, and he was straightway restored to his former health. The mother, mindful of her vow, fulfilled it on the next feast of St. Godeleva, leading the boy with her and everywhere gladly proclaiming the grace granted her. The preacher announced the miracle to the people from the pulpit, exhibiting the boy as a witness: but the needle itself, for the perpetual memory of the matter, was hung on the image of St. Godeleva.

CLASS II.

From the Latin Manuscript commentary of the Cleric of Gistel, written about the year 1506.

This brief commentary V. C. Aubert le Mire communicated with our Elders, The preface of the anonymous writer to these miracles. never before published, as I plainly think, since the Belgic legendaries have nothing which agrees in any way with the things here narrated. The author's name I have sought in vain. He attributes to himself no other office in the church of Gistel than that he was conversant in it: but from those things which in the course he indicates once and again, I probably gather that he was one of the seven Chaplains who served that church, as has been said elsewhere. Let us hear his little preface: Requested by continual admonitions from certain honorable and devout persons, that I should write some of the miracles, signs, and prodigies, which the very supreme Elector Christ Jesus, to the honor of his dear virgin and martyr Godeleva, ceases not daily to show; hence it is, that all the old things, which here and there in various volumes

I have read concerning her, both in her Legend or life, which shines full of miracles; namely in her life, in her death, and after her death, as is plain to those devoutly following her; and also in many old volumes, scattered in the neighboring churches, namely of Zande, Zevecote, and Moere, omitting; I intend to narrate in a succinct style only those which I myself, within the few years in which, though unworthy, I have been conversant in the parish church of Bl. Mary of Gistel, of the diocese of Tournai, where the pledges and relics of the same Martyr honorably rest, have partly seen with my own eyes, or received under oath from those to whom these things happened.

[10] In the year 1488, dire intestine wars raging in Flanders, the bier with the relics or body of the said martyr Godeleva, in a certain stone tomb, The relics of St. Godeleva intact in the terrible fire of 1488. on account of the fears of battle, stood secretly hidden in the church. But at last on the last of January of the same year, the wars daily increasing, by the hidden judgment of God, the town of Gistel is taken in war, burnt, and destroyed, together with the church. Which being burnt, and the fire as it were extinguished, so that access lay open to those entering, there was found the bier of the already said Saint, the tomb being altogether broken by the force of the fire and as it were dissolved into minute pieces, so intact and unharmed, that it could deservedly say that word of Ecclesiasticus 51: In the midst of the fire I was not scorched. Wonderful to say, since so great was the force of the fire, that not only the bells, but even the metal sarcophagi, as also the iron candlesticks, placed round about, were, by the long-lasting burning fire, incinerated and as it were reduced to nothing; yet our Redeemer so preserved intact the pledges of his beloved, comprehended in a wooden chest, covered with thin silver and adorned with gems, that not the least precious little stone was broken, where twenty-one altars were destroyed and shattered by the flame. Let us therefore, we mortals, praise God, and honor his Martyr, who certainly is worthy of honor, whom the King so willed to honor, and to adorn with so great splendors of miracles.

[11] In the year of the Lord 1492 it happened in the village of Ramscappelle near Nieuwpoort, One laboring on the feast of the Elevation of the Saint is punished, of the diocese of the Morini, that a certain [man], by name Cornelius Gillis, sprung from Gistel, compelled by his associates, on the 30th day of the month of July, on the second feria, on which day the feast of the Elevation of St. Godeleva is always festively celebrated at Gistel, cut grain in the field with a sickle: but when he had cut the third handful, soon his left palm, with the grain enclosed in it, was of itself closed, and in his throat, as if with a staff obstructing [it], a vehement pain grew, so that at once, like a mute, he lost his speech: which perceiving, struck with great terror, he ceased to work, and thenceforth proposed to keep the feast. Journeying therefore toward his dwelling, his palm was opened, he is freed from the grain, and is restored to speech. Meanwhile he began to ruminate in his mind, what it could have been that had thus happened to him in working; whether a miracle, a contraction, or a fortuitous chance. But perceiving in another field, not far from the road, a certain youth likewise doing work, approaching him, and narrating his chance, he at last by many prayers obtained, that with the sickle of the same worker, still tempting God, he might pluck the ears: whose left hand, immediately after it was filled with grain, was so tightly closed, the ears cleaving, that it could be opened by no mortal. Then that wretch, confounded and anxious what he should do, made mute a second time, wearied with immense griefs both in his throat and arms, at last returned home; showing to his wife and children by signs and nods, that they should follow him to the church of Nieuwpoort, for he dwelt in the suburbs of that town. He at last entering the church with a great retinue, began to adore the image of St. Godeleva, and when he was blessed by the Curate of the said church with the blood of St. Godeleva, of which they there have a small particle, straightway his speech returned; but after great force applied by many, he could not be freed from the grain. Thus the poor man, so wearied, is compelled to go to the countryside of Gistel. Yet he thought, and, the relics being visited, he is miraculously healed. out of shame, to take a hidden way, lest he be mocked by the people. But not able to hide the judgments of God, nor to conceal a lamp under a bushel, he is compelled to go along the public way. He, after he had set his first foot in the parish of Gistel, straightway his little-ear finger little finger of the left hand was of itself extended. By which animated, still ever striving to hide the glory of the Saint, he went to the monastery of the nuns near Gistel, where then there was a small influx of people: but after prayers poured forth, when he had felt no solace, but rather the grief of his arms grew heavier, all shame being set aside, he went to the parish church of Gistel, about to visit the venerable relics of the already said Martyr. He, after he had suppliantly rolled himself before the image, and prayer had been made in common for him, a little time having elapsed, began terribly to be shaken and to tremble in both arms and his whole body, and thus at last his hand was of itself opened, and he was freed from the grain, by the merits of the already said Martyr, and to the praise of God and his Martyr, straightway all things, as we have already written above, before all the people, under a strict oath, publicly before the altar he asserted and manifested.

[12] A certain matron of Oudenburg, of the diocese of Tournai, The rupture of a boy cured, seeing the said miracle of the grain, as we have already narrated, when she was then at Gistel with her male offspring, who was ruptured, and had made a pact with a certain surgeon of Gistel, by name John Caen, that by his art he should cure her son: she is soon filled with so great admiration and so great faith, that, all human aid being set aside, she committed the care of her offspring to Godeleva alone, and thus with devout prayers bidding farewell to the said Saint, and taking a paper image of the Saint, such as are wont to be found there, and touching with it the bier, confidently returned home. But when she had placed her son at the coming of night in the bedchamber, she gave him the aforetouched image, saying, now sleep, son, with quiet slumber, this is the image of St. Godeleva, by whose prayers I believe thou wilt be healed. Wonderful to say! this boy slept so sweetly that whole night, who before could scarcely rest an hour, as if he had no injury, as indeed he had none; for morning being made, when the mother intended to clothe him, and had looked more diligently to the light, she found him so healed in the groins, as if he had before had no rupture, and thus, returned with her offspring to Gistel, she presented her upon the altar of the said Martyr, to be seen and visited by all willing, with great thanksgivings. But then the above-named surgeon supervening, after he had diligently inspected [him], asserted that he was truly so healed, as if he had never before been ruptured. Let God therefore be praised, etc.

[13] In the year 1498 in the village called Zandvoorde, The audacity of a reaper checked, near Oudenburg, of the diocese of Tournai, a certain reaper, by name Cornelius van Cotrelare, a parishioner there, on the 30th day of the month of July, on the second feria on the feast of the Elevation of the said Martyr, likewise cut the grain with a sickle in the field. He, after he had for the space of an hour or thereabouts exercised a like work together with the son of his master Cornelius Ghiselins, the same son said, now it is time that I leave off working and go to Gistel to see the procession. Go, answered the other, in peace, for today I do not intend to visit Gistel. Which said, the youth went home, to adorn himself with more elegant garments. Meanwhile the other being left in the field, after his departure, a few moments having elapsed, when he thus persisted in working, straightway when he had bent down, thrice blood flowed from his nostrils, as he still bore the stains at Gistel on his shirt, and straightway the ears, as if viscous, began to be glued to his palm, which, being twice violently plucked off with the handle of the sickle, and not desisting from the work, the third time the left hand with the grain, and the right with the sickle, in the twinkling of an eye are so tightly closed, that not the least straw could be drawn out or broken. Which same [man] perceiving, and prostrating himself upon the ground as if in ecstasy, the said son of the house supervened, that, bidding farewell, he might go to Gistel. He, seeing Cornelius sitting thus, and understanding his chance, led him to the church of Zandvoorde: whither while he went, he was also made mute. But coming near the cemetery of the said church, he entered a certain chapel, annexed to the same cemetery, in which, his prayer being suppliantly made, he is freed from the sickle. Meanwhile the church is opened: but after prayers made by much people, who had now flocked to see the end, no hope of liberation from the grain being obtained, and a wonderful healing. at last he set out to Gistel with all that company. But when he set his first foot in the territory or parish of Gistel, soon his little-ear finger little finger is of itself opened, and thus proceeding, when he entered the town of Gistel, the finger next to the former is likewise of itself raised, and thus at last entering the church, as if bloodless for his labors, benignly received by the Curate there, he is led before the altar of St. Godeleva, where devoutly prostrating himself on the ground, and pouring forth suppliant prayers from the depth of his heart, after the common prayer of the crowd was finished, all his limbs are shaken with a vehement trembling, like one having a fever; and his tongue being unlocked and his hand, he delivered the grain into the hands of the said Curate, praising God and his dear Godeleva.

[14] A staff bound to a girl's hand falls off, In the year of the Lord 1501 in the village of Slijpe, of the diocese of Tournai, a certain virgin, by name Jacomina, of Snellegemkerke, of the same diocese, born about 18 years old, served a certain husbandman, by name John Balch. She, from her childish age, according to the vow of her parents, had always been wont to walk processionally on the feasts of Godeleva, in linen garments, before the bier of Godeleva with the other pilgrims; which nevertheless on that day, namely 30 July, on the feast of the Elevation of the said Saint, she could not obtain from her mistress; but is ordered to heat the oven for baking: who, having thrice striven to kindle the fire in the oven, it was always of itself extinguished. But the fourth time she gathered so copious a fire and so great combustibles in the oven, that in some way the fire seemed to be violently kindled. But four little bundles of branches being consumed, as also many straws thus first laid on, she strove to thrust in more wood. But taking one staff from the bundle of branches, to put it into the oven, straightway her right hand with the staff was closed: which, though striven at by many, could not be plucked out, until she had suppliantly presented herself before the altar and relics of St. Godeleva, in the church of Gistel, and prayer had been made for her by all the standing people. For I, who wrote these things, received the staff from her hand, and blessed the name of the Lord, who deigned to adorn his Dear [One] with so great signs.

[15] likewise the mattock of a digger, through the merits of the Saint. Another almost similar miracle happened at Oostkerke, near Lampernisse in the Bailiwick of Veurne, of the diocese of the Morini, in the year of the Lord 1506, namely on the 6th day of July, on the second feria, on the feast of the passion of St. Godeleva. A certain youth of 20 years or thereabouts, a parishioner there, by name John, son of Adrian Ghibbe, served Mary, widow of John Joeris, there. He, for some days before the said feast, proposed within himself, the punishments being heard which those not keeping the feasts of Godeleva had in various ways suffered, if he should please his mistress, to keep the feast on that day. Which nevertheless not being able to obtain from her, he is ordered to raise a dike with a mattock before the entrance of a certain pasture, lest so easy an entrance lie open to the animals or cows. Which when he had twice attempted to do, the third time the mattock remained in both hands; which neither the Lord Peter Mercatoris, Curate there, as he afterward reported to me, nor various others attempting this, could pluck out: until he had devoutly visited the thresholds of the oft-said Martyr, before her image and relics devoutly. Where when prayer had been made for him by the crowd according to custom, the fingers of each hand are of themselves raised, and he is freed from the mattock, which I, writing these things, received from his hands, praising God, etc.

[16] The faith of these miracles and of the following. Thus far the praised manuscript, which, from the last miracle, thou gatherest well enough with me was written about the year 1506, since there the little commentary ends, published with such authority and faith, that it cannot easily be called into doubt, inasmuch as written by a Cleric, I suppose a presbyter and chaplain of the church of Gistel, who was present at the things narrated by him, at least at most of them. And this is the second class of the miracles of St. Godeleva, which we carry down to the aforesaid year 1506. There follows now the third class, taken, as we have said, from the Belgic Legends, described in a rude and simple style, so that here and there it was necessary to contract the longer and more verbose periods, the substance of the whole history and miracle being meanwhile preserved. How much faith all these deserve, I indeed do not define; they are duly distinguished by their chronological notes, clothed with no deceptions or suspect circumstances, now for a century and more most received, approved by the suffrage of the ordinary censor, which arguments, both to us and to all not plainly incredulous, we esteem ought to suffice.

CLASS III.

Peculiar graces granted from the year 1512 to 1604 From the Belgic Legends.

[17] In the year 1512 a certain woman at Ypres was oppressed with a vehement and sudden quinsy; A woman of Ypres, of quinsy, but since she had neither the water of St. Godeleva nor anything else, she remembered a certain small banner, which she had preserved in honor of the holy Virgin and Martyr. And so with great confidence she put the little banner into water, which while, marveling, she beholds in no way changed, she drank the water in which it had been dipped, with the highest hope of recovering health. But soon restored to her former health, she went to the place in which St. Godeleva had undergone martyrdom, and there, thanks being given to the holy Martyr, promulgated to all the benefit shown her.

[18] In the same year near the city of Bruges a certain tailor had put a needle in his mouth, a tailor is freed from a needle taken in. which, he sneezing, had descended so deep into his throat, that for the excessive pain he was not master of himself. A little after, made master of himself, he invokes St. Godeleva and promises that he will go with bare feet to the place celebrated by the martyrdom of the holy virgin. Scarcely was the vow uttered when he felt the aid of the Saint: for by a cough he expelled the needle from his throat, and the same, the vow being fulfilled, in perpetual memory of the benefit, he hung before the image of his holy liberatress.

[19] At Utrecht a woman, by name Aleydis, A wonderful disease of a girl removed. had a twelve-year-old daughter, who was miserably tormented by a certain disease. A certain religious [man] persuades the mother to lead the little daughter to Wateni, and there to seek help from St. Giles. She obeys the persuader; but when for nine days they experienced there no alleviation of the ill, both, sad, begin to return home. But by the divine providence so disposing, at Aldenburg they turn aside to an inn, whose hostess, pitying the lot of the afflicted girl, thus addresses the mother. Come, I will suggest to thee a counsel, by which this wretched girl may be healed. With great confidence offer her to St. Godeleva, who is the most celebrated virgin and martyr of all Flanders. Tomorrow the vigil of her translation is celebrated at Gistel. Go thither with thy daughter and place all hope in the patronage of the Saint. To whom Aleydis: I have never heard anything of that Saint, and moreover I know not the way; but the girl said that she would not go thither. There were then by chance in the same lodging two men, who, hearing these things, added courage to the mother, and offered themselves as companions of the way, since they too were going to implore the aid of St. Godeleva. On the next day therefore all commit themselves to the journey; and when they approached the temple, the girl's disease grew worse; which those men seeing, indicated the whole matter to the clergy. Then a senior priest of the clergy goes to meet the mother and daughter, and, bidding them be of good cheer, leads the little girl to the sacred sepulchre of the holy Martyr, and, after prayers poured forth there, bids them return on the following day. On the morrow therefore the same priest, Mass being celebrated, prays publicly for the girl, and restores her healed to her mother. The mother shows a grateful mind by a gift offered and glad returns home. This daughter, when she had lived some years in the virginal state, rendered her soul to her creator. But the mother surviving ever augmented her love toward St. Godeleva, and promoted her cult among her countrymen, as will appear from the following examples.

[20] A woman nearly submerged under the ice is snatched out: In the year 1516 on the day before the feast of St. Pontian, in winter time, the aforesaid Aleydis, drawing water, fell so unhappily, that she stuck with her whole body under the ice. But while she was slipping, she had implored the help of St. Godeleva. The neighbors, who had seen her slipping, cut two holes in the ice, that they might find Aleydis alive or dead. All in vain. A little after she emerges of her own accord at the former place where she had slipped into the water. But when the girdle by which they had seized her was torn, she again lurked under the ice. At last brought again to the same place, and thence snatched out, she lay lifeless for three hours, so that very many believed her dead. Afterward returned to herself, and having received the Sacrament of penance and the Eucharist, she narrated that there had appeared to her a most beautiful woman, who, a hand being placed under her head, twice sweetly carried her to the place into which she had first fallen: but that this woman was St. Godeleva she deservedly suspected, and therefore vowed that each year she would go to the sepulchre of the holy Martyr. And so after two years, instituting with her sister the promised pilgrimage, she is seized on the way with the falling sickness, which she had contracted from her former peril. But her sister imploring the aid of St. Godeleva, Aleydis is freed even from this disease. All which things she testified to the glory of her holy Patroness before the nuns.

[21] another freed from the peril of miscarriage, In the year 1520 at Utrecht a pregnant woman, by name Mary, on account of a sudden terror had come into manifest peril of miscarriage. But when, at the exhortation of the aforesaid Aleydis, she had vowed a pilgrimage to St. Godeleva, she happily brought forth a mature birth, and after eleven weeks fulfilled her vow.

[22] another of a needle, which she had swallowed. In the same year, and in the same place, a certain Joanna had imprudently swallowed a needle; whence her throat swelled in a horrible manner. Afflicted with this ill, she orders the aforesaid Aleydis to be summoned. She soon offers Joanna the water sacred by the martyrdom of St. Godeleva: and when she had drunk two or three drops, she soon vomited the needle into her bosom, and in the same year offered certain gifts in thanksgiving to St. Godeleva.

[23] From the sacred blood clotted into a stone, true blood flows out. When in the year 1520, the heresy of Luther having arisen, on account of the various opinions of the people the cult of the Saints languished, St. Godeleva wrought not many miracles. Nevertheless, since it was the custom, that the clotted blood of the holy Martyr, extracted from the well and cleansed by the hands of the priests, should be let down again into the place, and this on account of some occurring hindrance had been omitted in the year 1576, the well emitted so great a stench, that scarcely anyone could bear it. But the blood being let down into the well according to custom, the water ceased to stink. In the same year when a priest, cleansing the clotted blood of St. Godeleva, doubted whether it were true blood, because it bore the appearance of a red stone; and when he had pricked [it] with a certain instrument, so copious blood flowed out, as if a vein had been opened to someone.

[24] [The monastery being laid waste by the heretics, the relics are translated to Bruges.] At this time we cannot commemorate many things, since in the year 1577 the heretics laid waste the monastery of St. Godeleva and the temple of Gistel, and the sacred relics were translated to Kortrijk and then to Bruges. Yet afterward the holy Martyr furnished the following benefits to her cultivators.

[25] In the year 1592 (the year 1572 seems to have been set by error by the historian or the typesetter) at Bruges Judoca Reveels, Great pains of the throat removed. a lay-sister of the Carmelite Order, suffered such pains of the throat, that the physicians despaired of mitigating them. And so all hope being placed in the patronage of St. Godeleva, she obtains from her superior that she may be conveyed to the place celebrated by her cult. But on the journey she vomited so great an abundance of blood, that for the space of an hour, destitute of all sense, she lay like a dead woman. Nevertheless when she had washed herself with water drawn from the well of the holy Martyr, she straightway recovered her former health, up to the feast of St. Godeleva: for each year about the feast of the Saint she was afflicted with the same disease, until she had instituted the wonted pilgrimage; in which exercise of piety she persevered for eighteen years, when she departed from this troublesome life.

[26] In the year 1592, on 5 July, Catharine van Hoeye, A girl's crooked neck straightened. a woman of Bruges, had a little daughter deformed with a crooked neck. The mother, having venerated the relics of St. Godeleva, orders a Mass to be celebrated; meanwhile at the time of the sacrifice the girl's neck is made altogether straight.

[27] In the year 1594 a woman of Gistel had a little daughter of eight years, A girl, of the falling sickness, who, laboring with the falling sickness, for eight or nine days could neither speak nor eat. The mother in this present peril demands the aid of St. Godeleva for her little daughter, and obtains [it]: for the little girl, addressing her mother with a bland mouth, asserted that there had appeared to her a woman clothed in a white garment, whose name was Godeleva, and that she had promised health, if she should venerate the sacred relics. The mother, these things being heard, straightway betakes herself thither with her offspring, and, certain gifts being offered, led her little daughter back altogether sound.

[28] In the year 1601 in the month of January, a youth, vexed with a huge pain of the throat, a youth, of pains of the throat, had vowed a wax candle to St. Godeleva, if he should be freed from this ill. But afterward, unmindful of his vow, he was so overwhelmed with a vehement catarrh, that he was deprived of the use of his tongue. The work of a surgeon therefore being applied in vain, he perceived that his negligence was manifestly punished. Wherefore promising better things,

he again begged the aid of the same Saint, and also felt [it]. Then grateful, betaking himself to the place in which the relics of the holy Virgin and Martyr are honored, he promised that he would be a cultivator of St. Godeleva for his whole life-time.

[29] In the year 1602, on 22 March, a boy had swallowed a needle, a boy, of a needle, so that he was in the greatest peril of life. The mother for her son's safety vows a silver needle to St. Godeleva, and soon the needle, without any injury to the boy, was expelled. The parent, thanks being given to St. Godeleva, satisfied her vow.

[30] a nun, of pains of the throat, In the same year, on 1 May, at Bergues St. Winnoc a religious woman of the order of St. Francis was for eleven years afflicted with such pains of the throat, that sometimes she was nearly suffocated. The inveterate ill had eluded the industry of several physicians: at last she fled to the patronage of St. Godeleva, and promised that she would visit her relics, if it should be permitted by her superiors. Straightway freed from all pain, she obtained leave from her superior, and instituted the promised pilgrimage.

[31] a little girl refusing food, are healed. In the same year a woman from the castle-folk of Ostend came to Bruges, greatly grieving on account of the disease of her little daughter of five years, who for six days had not eaten. Counsel is given her, that, to obtain the aid of St. Godeleva, she order a Mass to be celebrated. The sacred rite being performed, she returns, and finds her little daughter, whom she had thought to find dead or next to death, altogether sound.

[32] Another needle is ejected by a boy. In the same year on the feast of St. Lawrence, in the village commonly called Coolkercke, a little boy of five years had passed a needle into his stomach. Thence arose such torments, that the boy for five days was compelled to abstain from all food and speech. The mother places the little son before the altar dedicated to St. Godeleva, and offers two wax candles; and behold the innocent little boy with joined hands exclaims: I give thee thanks, Lady Godeleva, that thou hast healed me.

[33] A youth, of straits of the throat, In the year 1603, on 12 April, a youth was pressed with such straits of the throat, that for fourteen hours he lay void of all sense: but when his mother vowed the sacrifice of Mass to St. Godeleva, he is freed from all pain.

[34] a woman, of a needle set crosswise in her throat, In the same year, on 6 May, a needle fixed crosswise in the throat of a certain woman excited great pains. She promises that she will make the journey to St. Godeleva with a fasting stomach, and is suddenly healed.

[35] others are freed from torments of the throat. On the 18th day of October of the same year, a woman vexed with long-lasting torments of the throat had in vain implored the aid of the physicians. And so, destitute of human help, she promises a silk pall to St. Godeleva, and, the water sacred by the Saint's martyrdom being drunk, obtains health.

[36] To a youth speech is restored, In the year 1604, on 3 March, from a certain youth all use of his tongue was taken away. He had scarcely vowed a pilgrimage to the sepulchre of St. Godeleva, when a solid mass of blood, bursting from his throat, restored to him the faculty of speaking.

[37] and a needle again drawn out. In the same year on 28 April, at Aldenburg a needle cleaved to the throat of a certain boy, by which the wretch was so greatly tormented, that he lay like one dead. But when his mother promised to offer a silver needle to St. Godeleva, the little boy, spitting out the needle, was restored to himself.

[38] Of the following miracles. Thus far the words of the Belgic Legend, especially the older, published in type after another more ancient, which we have not seen, in the year 1619, with the approbation of the Most Ample Lord Arnold van Mechelen, Archdeacon of Bruges. We now pass to the fourth and last class, which is taken from the Acts of the Godelevian Nuns of Bruges, the earlier miracles, because most are older, being premised. The instruments of those Virgins are expressed in simpler formulas, subsigned nearly by those to whom the grace was shown, sometimes one or another assisting as witness. But those which we received from Gistel through the Most Illustrious Bishop of Bruges are aldermanic, and authentically transcribed from the registers, the Scribe Pulinx juridically attesting thus to each. On the Belgic words, as I advised before, it was sometimes not permitted to insist closely, but the whole matter is faithfully rendered into Latin from the Flemish or French, in the order which follows.

CLASS IV.

Miracles of St. Godeleva taken from the records of the Godelevian Nuns of Bruges, and the registers of Gistel, under the authentic testimony of the present Scribe Pulinx, in the year 1719.

I the undersigned Roger Vertiert, priest and chaplain of the parish church of St. Martin at Kortrijk, A priest is cured of hoarseness of voice; testify and declare, that about three years ago, namely in the month of May in the year 1638, I was seized with so great a hoarseness of voice, that for a year and a half I could scarcely, or scarcely even, discharge my office and sing. But when I had vowed that I would visit the holy Martyr Godeleva at Gistel in Flanders, I began to be better, and, the vow being fulfilled, suddenly on the return I altogether recovered my former voice and health. All which I am prepared legitimately to testify. Done at Kortrijk on 5 July in the year 1641. He subscribed with his own hand.

[40] The daughter of Jacob du Bois, dwelling in the village commonly called Halewyn, likewise one blind blinded by flowing humors, had over the space of four years spent much money on physicians and surgeons. But when she found no remedy for the ill, she fled to St. Godeleva, promising that she would go to her chapel, and there offer a wax candle as a gift. And so on the first day after the feast she venerated the sacred relics, and, her eyes being washed with water drawn from the well of St. Godeleva, freed from blindness, on the morrow she returned home glad with her father. So testifies the Reverend Lord Adrian van Daele, subprior of the abbey of St. Andrew about the city of Bruges, who then received confessions at Gistel.

[41] In the year 1645 Mary, daughter of John Wouts and Elizabeth Spaus, and another: dwelling at Dunkirk, was so blind, that the physicians, after various remedies applied in vain, confessed that she could not be healed except by a miracle. The mother, hearing this, invokes St. Godeleva, and vows a pilgrimage to her relics. She fulfilling the vow, the little daughter began to open her eyes, and over the space of fourteen days obtained perfect and constant health.

[42] In the year 1646 Mary Magdalene, four-year-old daughter of John van Wassenhove and Mary Talleboom, then one paralytic and mute, was plainly paralytic and mute. When the parents saw that they had profited nothing by various medicines, they decreed to apply the intercession of St. Godeleva, and the mother indeed promised that the sacred relics would be honored by her, and her little daughter inscribed in the congregation of the holy Martyr. While she commits her promise to execution, the girl is freed from the paralysis and then, vomiting much dreggy humors, obtains an easy use of her tongue. So the mother of the little girl legitimately testified before Philip Stalpaert, public notary, on 22 April in the year 1646.

[43] and one laboring with her eyes; When Mary Jacops for six or seven months suffered such pains of the eyes, that she could not bear the light, and found no solace in the physicians, she resolved to implore the divine aid through the intercession of St. Godeleva. And so, her name being given to the congregation of the holy Martyr, daily with great confidence, awaiting her aid, she often washes her eyes with the water often mentioned. While she perseveres in these exercises of piety over the space of three weeks, she suddenly feels herself healed at that time in which the candle was consumed, which she had offered to the honor of the Saint. So she herself (since she could not form the characters of her name) testifies, subsigned with a cross, on 13 April in the year 1650.

[44] another, of a quartan fever, The undersigned Toussaint de Sibier, ensign in the legion of the Marquis de Bournonville, testify, that, keeping garrison at Diksmuide, I labored so vehemently for ten or eleven months with a quartan fever, that I could ward it off by no medicines of the physicians. The physicians therefore being dismissed, I placed all hope of health in the merits of St. Godeleva. But when my wife had gone to the place celebrated by the martyrdom of the holy Virgin, and had ordered some Masses to be celebrated, on the same day on which nevertheless it was wont to recur, the fever remitted. Afterward for nine days I drank the water which my wife had brought drawn from the well of St. Godeleva, and afterward felt no indication of fever. So I declare by these things subscribed with my own hand. Done at Bruges on 14 November in the year 1672.

[45] another, of a swelling of the throat. I the undersigned Charles de Lannoy, canon, priest, and religious of the abbey commonly called Eeckhout in the city of Bruges, testify, that I, nearly suffocated by a swelling of the throat, invoked St. Godeleva, and took a small particle of that virginal blood, which the reverend lady Stalpaert, at that time abbess in the monastery of St. Godeleva at Bruges, had sent me. After three or four hours, ejecting a huge abundance of clotted blood, I felt an entire alleviation of the disease, and in sign of the truth and of thanksgiving for nine days I cultivated St. Godeleva in the aforesaid monastery of Bruges. Given at Bruges on 10 August in the year 1672. The same he confirms by his testimony, who then had the care of the sick, as follows: I John Chrysostom Claesman, canon of the same abbey and then infirmarian, attest that the above things are true. Each subscribes the instrument with his own hand.

[46] Anna Adriaensens, wife of Jacob Breemeesch, A sterile woman, healed of a grave disease, is endowed with fecundity. dwelling at Blankenberge, testifies, that for three years she was sterile and afflicted with a long-lasting disease, and at last, the physicians being left, fled to the patronage of St. Godeleva. And so, visiting the relics of the holy Martyr, and, the water already often mentioned being drunk, she obtained not only health, but even the wished-for fecundity, so that after nine months she bore a daughter. All which things she declared to be true before the Lord Erasmus Zeghers priest, and Judocus Walgrave surgeon, and subscribed with her own hand on 4 April in the year 1674.

[47] We consuls and aldermen of the town of Gistel to all who shall see these letters, One deprived of the use of her tongue experiences the aid of the Saint; or hear them read, make known, that today there appeared before us John Verhulst husbandman, aged about 65 years, and Georgia Lypont his wife, of the age of 54 years, who testified, that they know for certain, that Coleta, daughter of John de Croock, wife of John Platevoet, dwelling in the village of Boeschepe, of the territory of Cassel, was for three years and a half deprived of nearly all use of her tongue, and that she, lodging at the home of the aforesaid witnesses, declared, that by the intercession of St. Godeleva she was freed from this ill. In faith of which we have caused the present letters to be fortified with the seal of our town, and subscribed by our scribe Francis de Langhe, on 26 July in the year 1617. That this and the following instruments are extracted from the registers of Gistel, the praised present Scribe Pulinx testifies.

[48] We consuls and aldermen of the town of Gistel to all who shall see these letters, thus also one vexed with quinsy and the temptation of a demon, or hear them read, make known, that there appeared before us Marinus de Cock with Catharine Roeline his wife, and Petronilla de Cock, sister of the aforesaid Marinus, dwelling in the village of Beveren near Roeselare, who before us and the Lord Martin Carpele, Pastor of the aforesaid town, testified, that Catharine, daughter of the said Marinus, twenty years old, was so vexed with quinsy and the temptation of a demon, on the fifth feria of Holy Week, that she could scarcely be held by five

persons; but that the father, at the persuasion of his sister Petronilla, vowed that he would go to the place in which St. Godeleva was afflicted with martyrdom, and there offer a silver coin. Besides they declare that Catharine, from that time made master of her mind, said to her aunt, that she (God favoring) would fulfill the vow with her father; but after these things she lay quiet and mistress of herself up to the sixth feria after Low Sunday, when she placidly departed from this life. In faith of which the present letters were fortified with the seal of our town and subsigned by the hand of our scribe Francis de Langhe on 3 July in the year 1623.

[49] In the year 1668, on 6 August, before the Reverend Lord Nicholas vande Zande Pastor of Gistel, as also a nun pressed with fever and straits of the throat. and Philip Bormans alderman, and John Seghaert curator of the chapel of St. Godeleva, there appeared Mary Magdalene le Man, of the country of Tournai, a religious woman of the hospital of St. George at Menen, and by oath testified, that, besides a continual fever, in the year 1666 she was pressed with such straits of the throat, that she could neither speak, nor swallow food or drink, nay not even her own saliva, so that she was given up by the physicians. Moreover she declares, that by the counsel of her lady superior she vowed a pilgrimage to St. Godeleva; but on the following day, all things being prepared for extreme unction, the aforesaid lady superior ordered a Mass to be celebrated in honor of St. Godeleva, and when the priest had come to the words of the most holy consecration, she testifies that she felt a motion in her throat as if a piece of flesh had passed her gullet, and suddenly, the faculty of speaking being recovered, she supped mutton broth, and a little after obtained perfect health. All which things the eye-witnesses confirmed by their subscribed names, when they accompanied their companion coming to Gistel for the cause of fulfilling her vow, on 6 August in the year 1668. Subsigns sister Mary Magdalene le Man, Margaret Clevis Prioress, and sister Augustine Berthen.

[50] A blind infant recovers his sight, Judoca Prus, widow of Paschasius de Mortier, dwelling in the village of Moorsele, on 3 August in the year 1671, before the Reverend Lord Nicholas vande Zande Pastor of Gistel, John Seghaert curator of the chapel, and Jacob Winne and Laurence Maes aldermen, legitimately appeared, and by oath testified, that her little son of three years, by name Peter, was blind, and that she on the last of May of the current year promised a pilgrimage to St. Godeleva. Then she declares, that after twenty-four hours, washing the boy's little eyes with water sacred by the martyrdom of the holy Virgin, and setting aside a silver coin to be offered to St. Godeleva, she found her little son healed. In faith of which on this 3 August of the year 1671 she fulfilled her vow, and before the aforesaid witnesses confirmed by oath that all things were true.

[51] another ejects a needle. Thomas Robaeys, dwelling in the village of Houthem, of the territory of Veurne, before the Reverend Lord Nicholas vande Zande Pastor of Gistel, John Seghaert curator of the chapel, and John le Seure alderman, by oath declared, that his little daughter of three years in the month of February of the year 1669 swallowed a needle, which had descended so deep into her gullet, that to expel it the surgeon had often applied his work in vain. The little girl therefore being brought into the last straits; the father vowed a pilgrimage to St. Godeleva, and again together with the surgeon tried to expel the needle, which soon prodigiously came forth; which also he exhibited to the aforesaid witnesses on 3 September in the year 1671, and, sworn, subscribed.

[52] The Saint is present, invoked in a perilous childbirth, Judoca de Brune, wife of Peter Coussens, dwelling in the village of Thilst, before the Reverend Lord Nicholas vande Zande Pastor of Gistel, John Seghaert curator of the chapel, and George van Mulem alderman, appeared and testified, that, the time of bearing being complete, the foetus was for twenty-four hours detained in her womb; but in this most perilous childbirth, St. Godeleva being invoked, and a pilgrimage to her sepulchre being promised, she straightway bore a son. But the midwife, by name Joanna Reylof, affirms, that this could not naturally happen without injury to the mother or the boy. And the aforesaid Judoca offered a vessel of grain, which she herself had carried on her shoulders from home hither, in thanksgiving to St. Godeleva, and before the witnesses mentioned above declared under her subscribed name that all these things were true, on 5 April in the year 1672.

[53] and restores to another blind [man the use of his eyes.] Michael Nas husbandman, aged 65 years, dwelling in the village of Rumeghem, before the above-said Pastor, curator, and Laurence Maes alderman, appeared fortified with a written testimony from his Parish priest the Lord Bertin Carpentier, indicating the cause of his journey, and testified, that from a year and a half he had so begun to be blind, that he could distinguish neither men nor the appearance of money. Besides he declared, that by the remedies of various surgeons his eyes grew daily more and more dim, so that, destitute of human help, he decreed to flee to the aid of the Heaven-dwellers. Therefore by the counsel of certain persons, he vowed to St. Godeleva three wax candles, a silver coin, and some prayers, and straightway received his former faculty of seeing. In faith of which he today came to Gistel, to satisfy his vow on the morrow. Done on 28 April in the year 1672. There subscribed N. V. Zande Pastor, Laurence Maes, John Seghaert.

[54] The young lady Mary van Hertinghe, wife of John de Jaeghe, dwelling at Dunkirk, appeared before the Reverend Lord Pastor, Fish-bones cleaving in the gullet are passed through. alderman, scribe, and curator of the chapel of St. Godeleva in the town of Gistel, and testified, that about four years ago, eating a lesser cod boiled, she by chance swallowed two bones of the same fish, which so cleaved to her gullet, that by no industry of physicians or surgeons could they be plucked out. Then she declares, that, afflicted with this discomfort for three weeks, at last at the persuasion of a certain young lady of Dunkirk she implored the aid of St. Godeleva, and, two silver bones being promised with a pilgrimage, she drank the water of St. Godeleva, given her by the same young lady, and that straightway, this water being drunk, she passed the two aforesaid fish-bones into her stomach without any difficulty or injury. In faith of all which the young lady Mary before the aforesaid witnesses uttered an oath, and subscribed her name on 25 May in the year 1672.

[55] Theodore Sterck, dwelling in the territory of Cologne, An injured hand is healed. by sworn testimony declared, that, laboring at the sluice, commonly Slijkens, near Ostend, his hand was so injured by the fall of a rather heavy plank, that a little bone of his right palm was broken. Then he went to various surgeons to be cured; but for ten weeks profited nothing. At last placing all hope in the patronage of St. Godeleva, he vowed a pilgrimage and certain other exercises of piety, and, a single plaster being applied, felt his hand restored to its former vigor. In testimony of the truth of which matter the aforesaid Theodore, ignorant of writing, in place of his name noted a mark below on 7 August in the year 1672.

[56] The conclusion of the work, and the vow of the editor. And these things thus far concerning the miracles of St. Godeleva, collected with what diligence could be, with which we impose a colophon on our treatment; hoping, I suppose, to obtain this from the most zealous clients of the Saint, that they henceforth keep a more accurate account of the graces and benefits obtained by her merits, honoring God more earnestly in their most holy Patroness. To which too it will greatly conduce, if with their Most Illustrious Prelate, an eminent cultivator of St. Godeleva, to whom we inscribe these our so-due labors, they try to effect, the now most celebrated cult of the Saint being restored, that this moreover accede, which certainly the glory of so illustrious a Virgin and Martyr by a certain right of its own demands, that if not, as of old, with a proper Mass and Office, her festivity be celebrated, yet at least, by the most received custom today in the Church, from the Drogonian Acts, so sincere and genuine, a prayer and Lections for the second Nocturn be taken, which of St. Godeleva, at the least at Gistel and in all her territory, and in the nunnery of Bruges, be recited with an annual solemnity. Let all the foster-children of St. Godeleva add hereto their vows, care, zeals, and solicitude, [and] I will not suffer my labor to be wanting, in whatever way it shall be judged able to be useful; being about to demand this very thing most instantly of the Most Illustrious Bishop, and openly to show, that in the long-lasting infirmity by which, while I digested these Acts, I was detained, I have often felt no small aid of St. Godeleva: by which open testimony I desire my name to be inscribed in the catalogue of the other clients of the Saint, not vainly trusting, that in the prosecution of our vast work, her heavenly aid will never be wanting either to me or to my associates.