Kenelm

ON ST. KENELM, BOY MARTYR,

IN THE MONASTERY OF WINCHCOMBE IN ENGLAND.

IN THE YEAR 819.

The cult and Acts of the Saint.

Kenelm, Boy Martyr, in the monastery of Winchcombe in England (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. C.

The celebrated monastery of England, situated in the county of Gloucester, which is commonly called Winchcombe, once solemnly venerated on this day St. Kenelm the martyr, and with the Catholic rite venerated his sacred bones, there honorably laid up. William of Malmesbury, book 1 On the Deeds of the Kings of the English, page 33, treating of the magnificent dedication of the temple of Winchcombe, The cult of St. Kenelm in the monastery of Winchcombe, and of other things piously and distinguishedly done by Kenulph, king of the Mercians and father of our Martyr, adds these things at the end: "His son Kenelm, quite a boy, innocently slain by his sister Quendrida, having attained the name and glory of martyrdom, there (namely in the church of Winchcombe) rests." Then in book 2 of the same work, page 88, he indicates the celebrated cult of the holy boy in these words: "The little body of the Saint is celebratedly venerated; nor is almost any place in England venerated with a greater frequency of those coming to the feast: this both the persuasion of ancient sanctity and the frequent exhibition of miracles requires." Camden himself, a heterodox, could not plainly conceal the ancient veneration of this Martyr, however contrary to his heresy, when in his Britannia in my copy, page 257, he thus writes: "Winchcombe, here also a town frequented enough, where Kenulph the Mercian erected a monastery, and on the day on which he consecrated it, he freely dismissed to his own Edbricht, king of Kent, whom he had held captive. You would scarcely believe in how great celebrity this monastery was long ago on account of the relics of King Kenelm, a boy of seven years, whom his sister, that she might divert the inheritance, secretly did away with, and the Elders reckoned into the catalogue of the martyrs." If anyone desires to see the charter of foundation, and other things pertaining to the monastery of Winchcombe, let him consult the Monasticon Anglicanum, tome 1, from page 187.

[2] The Usuardine supplements record our Saint variously on this day, it is proved from the Martyrologies, as may be seen in Usuard illustrated not long since. Hence perhaps it passed into various Martyrologies of the more recent. Our Canisius, following Greven after his manner, in his German Martyrology calls him Kenelinus. But Ferrari in the General Catalogue on the same day thus announces him: "In England, of St. Kenelm, boy, king of the Mercians and martyr." The same Martyr on this day two Martyrologies written in English celebrate, of which one, printed in the year 1608, comprises a whole compendium of the Acts; but the other, which was edited in the year 1640, the prodigious punishment of the sister Quendreda being omitted, contains a briefer elogium. Peter de Natalibus in the Catalogue of the Saints, book 10, chapter 19, after the briefer Acts, which he took from William (he is, unless I am mistaken, of Malmesbury), adds these things at the end: "But the holy Martyr suffered on the third Nones of November." Various Martyrologists in assigning the day of the festivity imitated Peter of Equilio. Wherefore Ferrari repeats the announcement which he had before placed on the XVII of July, a few things being changed, on the third Nones of November thus: "In England, of St. Chenelm, boy and martyr." Maurolyco and Felici on the day III of November have the same almost word for word.

[3] and by proper lessons, The Breviary which was printed at Louvain in the year 1499 for the use of the church of Sarum, that is Salisbury in England, celebrates the festivity of St. Kenelm on the day XVII of July with an ecclesiastical Office, whose three proper lessons I here transcribe. Lesson I. "The most glorious Kenelph, king of the Mercians, in the year of the Lord eighty-nine [*], but of his reign the twenty-fourth, migrating to the Lord, with paternal affection left as heir his son Kenelm. Kenelm had royal sisters, Quendreda (who afterward drank her brother's blood) and Burgenilda, who loved her brother with sisterly affection. But Quendreda, by savage envy, and stimulated by the ambition of reigning, since she could in no way extinguish her brother by poison, arms his foster-father, by name Askerbert, with huge rewards and the hope of a share of the empire, against her brother's throat." Lesson II. "Which most wicked traitor leads Kenelm into a wood for the sake of hunting. But there, when the boy of seven years, sleep weighing him down, was securely slumbering, by the most cruel butcher a pit is prepared, in which the little one might be buried. Blessed Kenelm therefore, waking, and understanding the counsel divinely: In vain, he says, have you contrived this cave for me: for here not, as you thought; but in a more remote place, where the Lord has provided, shall I fall."

[4] Lesson III. "Whence this rod will give you a certain sign (for he carried a rod in his hand, and by the prayer of the church of Salisbury. and had fixed it in the earth), if only, being planted, it put forth leaves." As he pronounced this, at once the rooted rod began to put forth leaves; whence even now a huge ash is shown, which in memory of blessed Kenelm is held celebrated. It is asserted that blessed Kenelm, now about to be beheaded, began the sacred hymn, Te Deum laudamus, te Dominum confitemur, and in that verse: "Te Martyrum Candidatus laudat exercitus" ("The white-robed army of Martyrs praises thee"), being slaughtered fell. But his slayer buried the slain innocent in the earth. And so, by the Apostolic authority and of the archbishop, the sacred body of Kenelm is taken up with supernal praise, to be translated to his blessed father at Winchcombe, where the same king, amiable to God, rests in the temple. The Salisbury Breviary edited at Paris in the year 1557, certain faults being corrected, narrates the same. In each edition is read the following prayer: "Almighty and merciful God, who hast granted us the distinguished gladness of this day for the solemnity of blessed Kenelm thy martyr, attend serene the vows of the faithful people, and grant, that we may ever be relieved by the merits and prayers of him whose feast we today cultivate. Through the Lord, etc." The rest are recited from the common of one martyr.

[5] Now in order of time we shall bring forward some older writers of England, The sanctity of the same Martyr is confirmed by Ingulph, who confirm the sanctity of the same Martyr, although in narrating the circumstances of the Acts and miracles they thereupon differ among themselves, as will appear in the course. Ingulph, abbot of Croyland, who flourished at the end of the eleventh century, in his history, edited among other English writers at Frankfurt in the year 1601, page 855, has these things: "In the year of Christ the Lord eight hundred nineteen, that renowned king of the Mercians Kenulph, twenty-six years being passed in the kingdom (most attribute to him only 24 years of reign), after many good works, which in his life he had done as holily as strenuously, made an end of this temporal life with the grief of all,

and his body is given to burial in the monastery of the black monks of Winchcombe, which he had built from the foundations, but his happy soul sought the heavenly realms. His son the holy Kenelm, a boy of seven years, he left heir of the kingdom, who, by the guile of his sister Quendreda (with so great ambition did that most wicked woman aspire to the scepter of the kingdom), a few months being passed from his father's death, in a certain wood, whither he had been led to walk as the day was drawing toward evening, was most cruelly martyred by Ascebert his foster-father, a most innocent boy, and at last by a divine miracle, a ray of immense light glowing over the body of the Martyr the whole night, he was found, and near his father's tomb at Winchcombe is given to celebrated burial."

[6] by Florence of Worcester, Almost coeval with this writer is Florence of Worcester, who in the Chronicle at the year 819 writes the following of our Saint: "St. Kenulph, king of the Mercians, after many good works which he did in his life, passed to the perennial beatitude which is in the heavens, and left his son Kenelm, of seven years, heir of the kingdom. But a few months being passed, by the snares of his sister Quendrita, whose savage conscience the dire lust of reigning armed, by the daring of cruelty he is secretly given to the throat by Ascebert his most bloody foster-father, in a vast and woody forest under a thorny tree: but he who was slaughtered with heaven alone as witness, was afterward, heaven being witness, revealed through a column of light. The head of Kenelm, milky with the whiteness of his birth and innocence, is cut off; whence a milky dove with golden wings flies forth into heaven; after whose happy martyrdom Ceolulf received the kingdom of the Mercians."

[7] by William of Malmesbury, Nearest in age to Florence is William of Malmesbury, who in book 4 On the Deeds of the Pontiffs of the English, treating of the dedication of the church of Winchcombe, thus speaks to our purpose, page 284: "There rests father Kenulf with his son Kenelm, whom the father had left, at seven years, to his sister Quendrida to be reared. But she, falsely promising the kingdom to her cupidity, commended her little brother to be done away with to a satellite, who was his tutor. He, leading the innocent one as if to the hunt, hid him beheaded among the shrubs. And, wonderful to say, that a fraud committed so secretly in England became divinely known at Rome: since a parchment, let down upon the altar of St. Peter, a dove bearing it from above, was in order the index of the place of the slaying and burial: which, because it was written in English letters, being tried in vain to be read by the Romans and men of other nations who were present; but healthfully and in time an Englishman stood by, and, unfolding in Latin the wrapping of the tongue, brought it about that the Apostolic's letter should indicate to the English kings their fellow-countryman Martyr. Wherefore, with a frequent assembly, the body of the little boy, taken up, was carried to Winchcombe. Thus, at the vocal chant of the clerics and the eager applause of the laity, the parricide woman, moved, lifted her head from the window of the upper room in which she stood, and by chance was singing the psalm DEUS LAUDEM MEAM: which, leading it backward from the end by I know not what juggling, she strove to weaken the gladness of the singers. But then by divine force the eyes of the poisoner, torn from their hollow orbs, polluted with gore the verse HOC OPUS EORUM, QUI DETRAHEBANT MIHI APUD Dominum, ET QUI LOQUUNTUR MALA ADVERSUS ANIMAM MEAM ('This is the work of those who detract from me with the Lord, and who speak evil against my soul'). The signs of the gore exist today, breathing the cruelty of the little woman, and the vengeance of God."

[8] and by other English writers, among whom the error of two is corrected. Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, who flourished about the middle of the twelfth century, in an old manuscript parchment On the Saints of England, kept in our museum, has these things of the same Martyr: "But the clandestine martyrdom of Kenelm you will read at Winchcombe. He was the son of Kenulf, king of the Mercians, who, when he had reigned 24 years, died in the year of grace 819. But the martyrdom of Kenelm his son was revealed from heaven at Rome to Silvester the younger Pope." It is not clear what Silvester Pope he here wishes to designate, since the Roman Pontiff first of that name lived many centuries before; but the second died only in the eleventh century. Wherefore I suspect that so gross an error was committed by some ignorant copyist. Nor is the error of John Brompton light, who in a chronicle written toward the end of the twelfth century narrates that the slaying of St. Kenelm was detected at Rome by a schedule carried by a dove, when Pope Leo the less was celebrating the solemnities of the Masses. I am not ignorant of what here "Pope the less" means, as neither why Silvester above is called "the younger Pope": this I do not sufficiently understand, how the revelation of a recent slaying could be made in the time of Leo III, who died in the year of Christ 816, whereas nevertheless according to the English chronologers St. Kenelm was slain only in the year 819. I think therefore that Leo III was wrongly substituted for Paschal I, who governed the Church from the year 817 to 824.

[9] Let us now hear how the cited John Brompton, The revelation of the slaying of St. Kenelm made at Rome, edited among the ten writers of English history at London in the year 1652, column 777, sets forth this Roman revelation of the slaying. "But," he says, "because nothing is hidden which is not revealed, the most refulgent lamp which was obscured in England shone more clearly in Rome, the citadel of the world: for when Pope Leo the less was celebrating the solemnities of the Masses, an innumerable people standing by, behold a most white dove appeared from above openly to all, which deposited a snowy parchment with a gentle beak upon the altar of blessed Peter, written in golden letters in this manner in English:

In clent/in condale/Genelm kingis Bern/lith undir thorn hed byrebed.

But the holy Apostolic, looking with trembling at the new schedule, put forth in unknown words and letters, called to himself the people and the clerics of diverse nations then existing in the curia, that they might indicate if any among them had known anything of this epistolary relation. Whence by the English literate, who among the others convoked were there present, the sacred epistle is recited, whose interpretation in Latin is this: In the cow-vale of Clento Kenelm the royal one, born, lies with head cut off beneath a thorn."

[10] Matthew of Westminster in the Flowers of Histories at the year of Christ 821, is examined, and judged not sufficiently certain. the name of the Roman Pontiff being prudently passed over, wove the same history of the detected slaying. But in him the English words differ from the preceding, which nevertheless each writer testifies to be contained word for word in the schedule brought to Rome. Yet in substance they plainly agree: for in Westminster the sense of the words a certain poet rightly rendered thus in these two Leonine verses:

In Clenc sub spina, jacet in convalle bovina, Vertice privatus Kenelmus rege creatus. (In Clent, beneath the thorn, in the cow-vale lies, deprived of his crown, Kenelm, sprung of a king.)

I scarcely know what is to be judged of this prodigious revelation of the slaying. It is indeed a wonder that in Labbé, in the prolix Life of Paschal I, where other things about the finding of the bodies of saints are narrated, no mention is made of this matter. It is a wonder too that a prodigy so public was not consigned to letters by other writers of Ecclesiastical History. However it be, it would be to be wished that contemporary or nearly contemporary writers had handed down that miracle to memory. Certainly Ingulph and Florence of Worcester, cited above, are deeply silent about the revelation of the sacred body made at Rome; but assert that the body of St. Kenelm, a light glowing over his sepulcher, was detected in England. Let the credit of this narration therefore rest with its first asserter William of Malmesbury, who wrote his books easily three hundred years after the martyrdom of St. Kenelm.

[11] The miracle of the punished Quindreda, sister of St. Kenelm, I shall more easily believe the things which are narrated of the wonderful punishment of Quindreda; because the English historians testify that manifest vestiges of the divine vengeance still existed in their time. Besides those things which about this matter I gave above from William of Malmesbury, Matthew of Westminster in the place just cited thus speaks: "Both her (namely Quindreda's) eyes, torn from their seats, fell at once upon the very page which she was reading. And still that Psalter, wrought of silver, and wet with the gore of the fallen eyes, affords an indication of this correction." John Brompton, whom we said flourished about the end of the twelfth century, affirms that the same indication of divine vengeance persevered in his time in these words: "By manifest divine vengeance the pupils of both her eyes flew from her head upon that Psalter (which in memory of the deed is kept in the said church of the monastery of Winchcombe to this day)." Like to these are the things which are said in the Acts of St. Kenelm, no. 10.

[12] it is confirmed. Giraldus commonly called from his homeland Cambrensis, coeval with John Brompton, in the Itinerary of Cambria, book 1, chapter 2, narrates a certain miracle, which I wished here to transcribe whole, because it pertains to our purpose, and confirms the testimonies of the preceding authors. Thus therefore he writes: "Of the Psalter too of Quindreda, sister of St. Kenelm, by whose instigation he had been killed, a great virtue shone forth in our days. When the sub-cellarer, on the vigil of St. Kenelm, late at Winchcombe, crowds of women coming from the neighborhood and acquaintance of the monks to the feast, as they are wont, incurred fornication with a certain one of them within the enclosures of the monastery: he, the next day, presuming to carry the aforesaid Psalter among the relics of the Saints to the procession, the solemnity of the procession completed, returned into the choir, could not lay it down, it firmly adhering to his hands. He, greatly stupefied and confused, at last recalling to mind his fault of the day before, confession being made and penance enjoined, aided by the prayers of the brothers, and contrite by his own compunction, at last deserved to be absolved and released from the divinely given bond. But that book is therefore held in great veneration there, because when the body of Kenelm was being carried, and the crowds cried: He is a martyr of God, he is truly, he is a martyr of God; Quindreda, guilty and conscious of the fratricide, answered: He is as truly a martyr of God, as it is true that my eyes lie torn out upon that Psalter: for at that hour she was by chance reading the Psalter. And at once both her eyes, torn divinely from her head, fell upon the open book, where even now vestiges of blood appear." Although here the punishment of Quindreda is related in a somewhat different manner, yet it makes to that which I intend to prove. Now about the Life to be subjoined to this commentary we shall preface a few things.

[13] First it is uncertain by what author and at what time the Acts of St. Kenelm were written. But at least I gather and the antiquity of the Acts is investigated. that they were written after the year of Christ one thousand, for the reason that in them, no. 11, is narrated a certain miracle done in the time of King Canute, who began to rule the English only in the year 1017. On the other hand our manuscript copy agrees almost word for word with the Legend of the Saints of England, compiled by John Capgrave, which does not seem very ancient. Yet, all things weighed, I conjecture that those Acts were written in the twelfth century, or at least were afterward partly taken from older ones, because in substance they scarcely differ from those which John Brompton toward the end of the twelfth century inserted into his chronicle. Ours indeed are here and there more wordy, and augmented with several miracles, but this discrepancy we shall easily observe in the Annotations. Now our manuscript, which we received from the Regular Canons of Rooklooster near Brussels, collated with the Legend of Capgrave, we here commit to the press.

* Read "eight hundred nineteen" (octingentesimo decimo nono).

ACTS AND MIRACLES

From the manuscript of the Regular Canons of Rooklooster near Brussels, collated with the Legend of John Capgrave.

Kenelm, Boy Martyr, in the monastery of Winchcombe in England (S.)

BHL Number: 4642

FROM MANUSCRIPTS.

The king of the Mercians Kenulf, in the year of the Lord eight hundred nineteen, the twenty-fourth of his reign ^a, leaving the world, While Quendreda prepares death for her brother, left Kenelm as heir, who had two sisters, Quendreda and Burgenilda. For this Kenelm, small in age, but magnificent in soul and piety, the love of his people had chosen as king: but Quendreda, by savage envy, and stimulated by the ambition of reigning, laid snares for him. Whom, since she could not extinguish by poison, she did not fear to arm his foster-father and manager, by name Ascherberc, with huge rewards, and the hope of a share of the empire, against her brother's throat. In such a manner having taken counsel together, they prepared their arrows, that they might shoot in the dark at the upright of heart.

[2] At that time Kenelm saw in sleep a vision, St. Kenelm has a vision, which, relating to his nurse Wlibenna [*], he said: "It seemed to me, O most dear mother, that before my chamber a most lofty tree stood, even to the stars; and I saw myself standing on its high top, whence I could behold all things far and wide. But it was most beautiful, and comely with widely-spread branches, from bottom to top most full of all flowers. I saw it too all burning with innumerable lights: but to me three parts of this earth bowed with prone devotion. And when from so great a watchtower I wondered at the vision, certain of my own, rushing beneath, cut down the tree, and it fell with a huge ruin. But I was at once made a little white bird, and with free flight penetrated the ether."

[3] Scarcely had he uttered the vision, when the nurse, beating her breast, burst into such a voice: which the nurse interprets of his imminent slaying. "Woe is me," she said, "sweetest son, woe, my nursling, and my sweet nurturing! Shall then the snares of your own, shall then the malign counsels of your sister and foster-father prevail against you? Woe, how I fear that that tree cut down foreshadows the loss of your character! Yet in the little bird by which you shall penetrate the ether is understood the glory of your soul about to ascend ^b."

[4] The holy boy, foreknowing of his slaying, Ascherbert at last, an occasion being had of hastening the crime, leads Kenelm away into a wood for the sake of hunting, as if to be delighted by love of his father's pursuit. And when they drew near the wood, the tender boy of seven years, weighed down by sleep, slips from his horse, and reclining there, secure of evils, wholly slumbers. Then the most cruel foster-father prepares a pit, in which he might the quicker bury him. The boy at last waking is said to have spoken with a prophetic voice: "In vain have you contrived this cave for me: for not here, as you think, but in a more remote place, where God has provided, shall I fall. Whence this rod will give you a certain sign, if only, being planted, it put forth leaves." And the rod which he carried in his hand he fixed in the earth. As he said this, at once the rooted rod began to put forth leaves, and to this day a huge ash shown there in memory of blessed Kenelm is held celebrated.

[5] he is secretly killed by his foster-father; Then the most savage artificer leads the boy farther, into a deep valley in that very wood, called Clento. And when the tyrant, son of iniquity, curiously sought various secret places, the Martyr seemed thus to rebuke him with the Lord's voice: "What you do, do quickly." There therefore, under a thorn tree, the head of Kenelm of seven years is cut off, which he himself is recorded to have at once received with outstretched little palms ^c. It is asserted too that, now about to be beheaded, he began "Te Deum Laudamus, te Dominum confitemur," and in that verse, "Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus," being slaughtered fell, on the sixteenth of the Kalends of August.

[6] but God by various signs both in England, But at once the impious persecutor buried the slain innocent in the earth, and hastily returned home. Finally, he who bore martyrdom with heaven as witness, was revealed and declared with heaven as witness. For a shining column of light poured from heaven upon the place was often shown. For whom bestial inhumanity strove to hide from human knowledge, him the diligence of a beast betrayed to men. For a white cow of a certain widow, the public pastures being left, ran down from a high mountain to the low monument of the buried one, and inseparably adhered there, wondrously attracted and enticed by divine delight, so that by no one's insistence could it be torn thence. But as often as it was brought back home, it surpassed the whole herd by a double abundance of milk, so wholesome was the grass and grace [*] on which it fed around the holy sod; and in a wondrous manner what was cropped in the evening it found more abundant in the morning. Hence too that place came to be called the Cow's Valley.

[7] and at Rome Quendreda, having gotten the kingdom bought by fratricide, terrified all by such an edict, that if anyone should seek or indicate Kenelm, or even treat of him in words, without delay he should suffer the penalty of beheading and pay it ^d. But the most refulgent lamp which was obscured in England shone more clearly in Rome, the citadel of the world. For when Pope Leo the younger ^e was celebrating the solemnities of the Masses, behold a dove whiter than snow appeared openly, and, carrying in its beak a snowy parchment inscribed in golden English letters, deposited it upon the altar of blessed Peter, and departed. But the Pope, looking with fear [*] at the new schedule put forth in unknown words and letters, showed it to the peoples of diverse nations, among whom were English who read the sacred epistle containing such an interpretation: In the Cow's Valley of Clento lies Kenelm the royal one, born, cut off in the head beneath a thorn.

[8] Then the Pope, the terror of the womanish threats being set aside, sends with faithful Englishmen legate Cardinals with letters and Apostolic power to the Archbishop of Dorbernia ^f, Wilfrid ^g, and the other Pontiffs of the English, manifests his slaying, that they should transfer the martyr Kenelm from his unworthy hiding-place into a church. But when his body was raised from the earth, a living fountain emerged thence, which, flowing into a stream, bestowed health on many tasting of it. For, the body being carried from the wood, a very great crowd of the blind, deaf, lame, and those held by various diseases was cured.

[9] But the people of Gloucester and of Worcester disputing over the body, and the translation of the relics by a miracle, it at last pleased both parties that the people who in the twilight of the following day should first have awakened, should carry off St. Kenelm, as if divinely given to them. And so the people of Gloucester, more vigilant, with the sacred sod had now gone fifteen miles, before the others, roused from sleep and kindled with shame and anger, followed after them with all speed. Whom, when they perceived fleeing from afar, the suffrage of St. Kenelm being invoked, escaping by a narrow path they protected themselves among the shrubs. And when, not far from the monastery of Winchcombe, wearied with labor and most grievous thirst, they sat with the holy body, they implored the aid of St. Kenelm with humble devotion. And without delay a living fountain, and to this present day continually flowing, bursting forth beneath a certain rock, quenched the thirst of those drinking from it ^h.

[10] Then Quenreda stood in a certain upper chamber, and, beholding the multitude coming with the triumph of her brother's glory, and renders it celebrated by the punishment of the impious sister. began to waste away with anger and indignation. And, having taken a Psalter, by a certain juggling, she strove not to sing for him, but to enchant against him the hundred and eighth psalm, that, from end to head, from the last verse to the first, by perverting it, she might make it destructive to her brother's felicity. Yet, God willing, her curse redounded upon herself. For when, ascending from the end, she rolled with poisonous mouth this verse, "This is the work of those who detract from me with the Lord," at once both her eyes, uprooted from their seats, fell upon the very page which she was reading. And still that Psalter, wrought of silver, stained with the gore of this correction, affords an indication. But she herself, unhappy, after a little died ⁱ. Whom they say could be kept buried neither in the church nor in the field; but that a certain most bright infant, appearing to someone, ordered her to be cast in a certain deep place.

[11] In the time of King Canute a certain Dane tried to take away part of the right of St. Kenelm, and it was adjudged [*] that that rich man with twenty-four should prove his right by oath over the body of St. Kenelm. A certain unjust invader of the estate, And when he set himself to do this, suddenly repelled by the power of God, he went off backward, and as if overwhelmed by a mighty blow fell supine: and thus the land being adjudged to the Saint, the adversary was led home, who tried unjustly to take away another's land, and lost all his possessions with the world by right.

[12] and a matron despising the feast of St. Kenelm are punished. A certain matron despised to observe the feast of St. Kenelm, and, sitting at dinner, hurled certain unworthy words against the Saint, nor commanded any work to be intermitted: "For Kenelm," she said, "I know not who, we will not lose the fruit of the day." Scarcely had she uttered the word, and behold both her eyes, struck out, fell to the earth, and the oxen yoked to the vehicles, shaking off the wood and the yokes, were so dispersed that thereafter they could not be found.

[13] A blind and mute man, A certain man blind from birth, visiting the sepulcher of the Saint, beholds a most beautiful boy standing by him, carrying in his hand two most refulgent stars, and impressing them on the seats of his eyes. And without delay, restored to himself, his eyes being unlocked, he saw clearly; he wondered at the unknown appearances of things, the amplitude of the world, the brightness of the light, and the rest which are in the world. A certain man mute from birth saw St. Kenelm come to him with a blazing taper, and thus thrust the burning one into his open mouth, and thus, leaping up, he spoke rightly, and he who before could only hear, now was able to utter.

[14] other sick are healed at his sepulcher. Another mute too he cured, and rendered his tongue apt for speaking. A certain one girt with iron he freed; a contracted one he restored to his steps; a blind one he enlightened; a contracted one, having his ankles pressed into his buttocks, and his hands twisted back, so that the fingers clung backward to the arms, walking, and being admonished that he should return to St. Kenelm, he restored his limbs apt for going. For he saw a most beautiful boy descend from the altar, and with a golden rod which he carried in his hand touch him, and command him to rise. Which done, he again ascended the altar, and suddenly entered his shrine ^k.

ANNOTATIONS.

Worcester Brompton too does not mention, as neither of the miracle following it.

* Otherwise Wlwenna.

* Otherwise "grateful."

* Otherwise "with trembling."

* Otherwise "and it is adjudged."