Frederick

ON ST. FREDERICK, BISHOP AND MARTYR,

AT UTRECHT IN BELGIUM.

IN THE YEAR 838.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Frederick, Bishop and Martyr, at Utrecht in Belgium (S.)

BHL Number: 3161

BY THE AUTHOR G. C.

§ I. The cult, tomb, and relics of the Saint.

Utrecht, an ancient city of the Batavians, which is also called Trajectum ad Rhenum, that it may be distinguished from Trajectum ad Mosam (Maastricht) (Pierre de Marca in the History of Béarn, book 1, chapter 25, and other foreigners confused these two cities) had very many prelates illustrious for sanctity, The ancient cult of the Saint from Calendars, and among them venerates on this day St. Frederick bishop and martyr. I do not doubt that our Saint began to be venerated a little after his death, as may be gathered from those monuments which we shall bring forward through the course. Yet among the ecclesiastical fasti whose determinate age we know, his first memory occurs in the Calendar of the church of Utrecht, which, written in the year 1374, we keep in our Museum. All the Breviaries of later times and the proper Offices of the church of Utrecht mention this holy Prelate. First of all the book printed in the year 1503, which is called the Perpetual Ordinary of the diocese of Utrecht, and which contains a certain directory for rightly reading the canonical Hours, on the XV Kalends of August thus prescribes concerning him: "Of Frederick bishop of Utrecht and martyr. Of this holy Bishop on every weekday is sung the Te Deum, and the GLORIA IN EXCELSIS and ITE MISSA EST are said."

[2] Three Utrecht Breviaries, of which the first was printed in the year 1508 at Leiden, with prayers, a hymn, the second in the same year at Gouda, and the third in the year 1518 again at Leiden, recite of him the following collect: "May the confession, recounted, of thy holy martyr and pontiff Frederick, O Lord, confer on us the increase of pious devotion, who, persevering in thy name, deserved to be honored. Through," etc. The proper Offices of the diocese of Utrecht, printed in the years 1623 and 1640, have another prayer concerning the same Saint; namely the older printing in this manner: "God, for whose church the glorious pontiff Frederick fell by the swords of the impious, grant us, we beseech, by his intercession, to persist by the reason of the mind against the enticements of sin, and to dread none of the adverse things of this world. Through our Lord," etc. I find besides in the manuscript Offices of the same diocese a proper hymn, which whether, and at what time, it was in use in the church of Utrecht, I know not. Behold it:

Let us sing a hymn of grace To Christ, because he is the King of glory, And the victory of the Martyr Let us bring to memory.

Present are the sacred solemnities, In which the Church teaches With what virtue endowed Is the renowned martyr Frederick.

Unconquered in the contest, An athlete in the name of Christ, He held the sincere faith, And shone with charity.

He rebuked the crime of Caesar, Seeing it, as one diligent He condemns the incestuous nuptials, Truly noxious to salvation.

Hence, that vengeance be taken, The Prelate is given to punishment, And bears death cheerfully, Relying on the justice of his cause.

To God the Father be glory, And to his only Son, With the Spirit the Paraclete, Both now and forever.

[3] In the Breviaries already mentioned are read proper Lessons, and with proper lessons, which comprise nothing but a summary of the Acts afterward to be given. And those indeed which were printed at the beginning of the XVI century narrate the deeds of St. Frederick briefly in nearly the same words of the Acts; but others, which were printed in the XVII century, changed the same narration a little more probably and more polishedly. The Louvain edition of the year 1623, and the Cologne of the year 1640, in the second Nocturn with three Lessons hand down this synopsis of the Life: Lesson IV. "Frederick, born among the Frisians of a noble race, was from his tender years of such innocence of life and candor of soul, that he seemed endowed with angelic purity. For, being still a little boy, besides the beauty of his body, he was adorned with so many and so great gifts of soul, that, ludicrous things being despised, he had leisure almost continually for divine things, and with the greatest alacrity reported to his parents the things read or heard in church. At which his mother, greatly rejoicing, delivered him, first to certain Religious, then, admonished by a heavenly vision, to St. Ricfrid, prelate of the church of Utrecht, to be imbued with more honorable letters and most holy disciplines: by whose instruction he at last so profited, that, Ricfrid being dead, by the judgment of all he was demanded to rule the same church."

[4] Lesson V. "At the petition of the clergy and the whole people, the suffrage of the emperor Louis acceding, he is approved for the church of Utrecht. with the public congratulation of all, almost unwilling, he was ordained bishop. In which office, besides the domestic ornaments of the virtues, for procuring more efficaciously the salvation of the people committed to him, he applied all pastoral solicitude and vigilance. The island of Walcheren, then very infamous for incestuous nuptials, by continual preaching, and especially by assiduous prayers and tears poured out to God, he converted to a better condition. Frisia too, declining to the Arian and Sabellian perfidy, aided by the labor of St. Odulf, canon of Utrecht, he brought back to the truth of the ancient faith." Lesson VI. "At last he gravely offended the emperor Louis; either because he seriously reprehended him concerning Judith, daughter of the duke of Bavaria, his kinswoman taken in marriage, or because he tried, by the liberty of pastoral vigor, to recall to a sounder mind the same woman, condemned by the judgment of certain bishops of Germany and Gaul. Whence Judith did not cease, first by blandishments and gifts, then by threats, to undermine the constancy of the holy Man. But these being often tried in vain, by two assassins, after the solemnities of the Masses, and a sermon delivered to the people, and the prediction of his own slaying, being stabbed, pardoning the injury to the sacrilegious men, and persuading them to flee, he entered the tomb alive. Then, foretelling the devastation of the empire and of the see of Utrecht by the Danes and Northmen, amid the voices of those weeping and chanting psalms, he rendered his blessed spirit to God, a most sweet fragrance of odor overflowing from his body. He was buried at St. Salvator's: whose merits and sanctity God has often testified by very frequent miracles at his tomb."

[5] The Usuardine Supplements, Various Martyrologies celebrate the same Saint. The Supplements of Usuard in the Greater Antwerp, Utrecht, Leiden, and Louvain codices on this day have thus: "On the same day, of St. Frederick bishop of Utrecht and martyr." But the Hagenau codex calls him confessor in these words: "At Utrecht, of St. Frederick bishop and confessor." The Register of the Charterhouse of Utrecht moreover thus indicates the burial place of the holy Prelate: "Of Frederick bishop of Utrecht, martyr. He rests at St. Salvator's." Finally the Brussels codex adds the cause of the slaying (whether it be true will afterward be discussed) in this manner: "At Lower Utrecht, the birthday of St. Frederick bishop and martyr: who by the command of the empress was slain for the justice of the divine law; famous for many miracles." The Greven codex thus more clearly explains the same cause of the slaying: "At Lower Utrecht, of St. Frederick bishop and martyr: who, when with zeal of justice he reproved the unlawful nuptials of the emperor Louis, having experienced another Herodias, is crowned with martyrdom." The additions of Molanus make no one by name the author of the slaying, but thus pronounce in general: "At Utrecht, of Frederick bishop of the same place, and martyr: who, innocent, was slain by the guilty for the truth before the holy altar of God after the celebration of the Mass; buried in the same place." Let these things from the Usuardine Supplements suffice. Now let us enumerate certain other Martyrologists.

[6] Our manuscript Florarium, collected by a Regular canon, and other Martyrologies celebrate St. Frederick, ascribes St. Frederick at its pleasure to the Order of Regular Canons, and thus celebrates him on this day: "At Lower Utrecht, the birthday of St. Frederick bishop and martyr, of the Order of Regulars. He, when he had reproved the imperial house for incest, the incestuous queen procured that he be slain by a cruel death: which impending, the holy Man prophesied of the desolation of the empire, and so, as he had foretold, it evidently came to pass. He suffered in the year of salvation 837." Galesini in his Martyrology keeps silent about the cause of the slaying, while he thus records him: "At Utrecht, of St. Frederick bishop and martyr, whose life both most holily led, and deeds piously done, are read with the greatest testification of his divine virtue." Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology on this day wove a prolix elogium from the Acts of St. Frederick, in which he narrates the incestuous nuptials of Judith and other things which the French writers everywhere oppose. Today's Roman Martyrology on the fifteenth Kalends of August thus briefly announces this holy Prelate: "At Utrecht, of St. Frederick

bishop and martyr." Castellanus, to these words of the Roman Martyrology edited by him in French, thus notes in the margin: "Not for the faith; but because he had threatened to excommunicate the empress Judith the Bavarian." Baronius in his notes on the same place of the Roman Martyrology thus speaks of St. Frederick: "He fell by martyrdom in the year of the Lord 838 for this cause, that, as also St. John the Baptist, he reproved the king for a kinswoman concubine introduced, by whose arts, assassins being sent, he was slain." But the same most Eminent writer in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 838 recalls this his opinion, as we shall afterward see. Meanwhile we shall conclude this paragraph, when we have said some things about the tomb and relics of the Saint.

[7] According to the cited Supplements of Usuard and other monuments, the sacred body of the Martyr was buried in the church of St. Salvator. I gather from an ancient poem, whose sacred bones were famous for miracles, which our Johann Gamans, copied from a parchment passional of the monastery of Böddeken in the diocese of Paderborn, sent to us in the year 1641, that this tomb was once frequented with a great concourse of the people. The poem in the Böddeken manuscript codex thus sounds:

At Utrecht the great one rests in body, Whose name, as is reported, is Frederick; Who had been a prelate, while he remained in frail flesh. A man very just, second to none in piety: Afterward slain (which king Louis did) He is entombed on the right side of the altar of John, Who at the supper of Christ lay upon the nourishing breast: Gleaming in those parts, and with many virtues; He gives to the blind clear light, and to the dumb speech, And calms fevers, and drives away devils and black ones; He raises up the cast-down, and lifts many bowed ones: And the little man goes not empty of the divine gift From his tomb, whoever has come thither. Wherefore the clergy prays this, and no less the people, Through his merit and holy prayer always, That he may be able to tread underfoot the ancient tyrant, And to overcome all his wicked arts, That he may be able securely to serve the heavenly Lord: And that he may abide in his venerable commands, That by his holy work he may be worthy to ascend to heaven, When first the debts of the tender flesh shall be paid. This, God granting, comes to pass, which they ask from him With a pious heart, that all men may forthwith obtain.

[8] Once there was transmitted from Utrecht to our Papebroch a certain annotation pertaining to the burial place of St. Frederick, in the church of St. Salvator, which was taken from an old chorography of the now destroyed church in these words: "In the greater crypt is the altar of St. Stephen. Before the same altar was the tomb of St. Frederick bishop and martyr: that tomb was covered with a certain precious stone, always moist, and before it hung two lamps burning night and day." The author of the Batavia Sacra, edited in the year 1714, from Anton Matthaeus copies this epitaph of St. Frederick, page 100:

By this marble is covered the sacred body of Frederick, The distinguished martyr, and pious prelate. And pious Albric lies here, and great Ludger, And several others; do thou now bend the knee. Scarcely could anyone easily tell thee how many bodies of the Saints This place holds; do thou now bend the knee.

Then the same author brings forward another inscription cut in stone around the tomb of the Saint, which I think pertains to the prodigious punishment of the impious sacristan, which is related in our Acts from number 48 to the end. That inscription thus has:

Why dost thou wickedly pollute the sacred vestments, impious guardian, Which the pious people dedicate to divine offices? Why does thy drunkenness defile our things with obscene gape? There comes a just vengeance worthy of thy deeds.

[9] All the bones of the holy Martyr seem to have remained in this tomb up to the year 1362, when Folker bishop of Gibelet enclosed his sacred skull in a precious shrine, as the clause, which perhaps someone at that time added to the manuscript codices of the Acts, testifies in these words: [of which a part of the skull, enclosed in a precious shrine in the year 1362, is preserved to this day.] "But in the year of the Lord one thousand three hundred and sixty-two, on the twenty-eighth day of the month of July, while the tomb was being renewed around the sepulcher of the aforesaid Martyr, the head of the Martyr himself was extracted by the venerable father Folker bishop of Gibelet, at that time discharging the office of the bishop of Utrecht in the pontificalia, and enclosed in silver and gold, to the glory and praise of almighty God, and the fuller veneration and honor of the said Martyr." This clause of the Acts is confirmed by the most distinguished man Gysbert Lappius in a letter given to our Bolland in the year 1644, in which among other things he asserts that a part of the skull of St. Frederick, enclosed in a silver mitred head, displays the following inscription, which he himself copied in this manner: "In the year of the Lord 1362 the Dean and Chapter of St. Salvator of Utrecht caused me to be extracted from the tomb, then renewed, and to be made by Elias Scerpswert the goldsmith." These relics were wont to be exposed in the church to the public veneration of the people, when the Catholic religion flourished at Utrecht; but in the Belgian tumults, withdrawn from the fury of the relic-fighters, they are today preserved in the private house of a certain person. But where at this time is the rest of the body of the holy Martyr, no one could easily tell.

* elsewhere "honor" (honore)

* that is, demons (zabulos)

* that is, a little man or manikin (homulus vel homunculus)

* read "which" (Quas)

§ II. The homeland, profession of life, deeds in the episcopate, elogia, and year of death of St. Frederick.

The dispute concerning the homeland of St. Frederick, The more recent writers of Frisian affairs affirm that St. Frederick was born in the village of Sexbierum, not far from the town of Franeker, of a stock so illustrious that he had for maternal grandfather the prince Aldegillus, and for great-grandfather king Radbod. Aubert Miraeus in the Belgic and Burgundian Fasti on the XVIII of July thus writes of the homeland of our Saint: "Frederick the eighth bishop of Utrecht, born of a noble race among the Frisians, in the castle of Adelen near Franeker, joined the Zealanders to Christ." Johann de Beka and Wilhelm Heda assert that he was by nativity a Frisian, but they make no mention of the particular place, nor do they refer his race to Radbod prince of Frisia. But William of Malmesbury, who died before the middle of the XII century, in book 1 On the Deeds of the English Pontiffs, page 197, calls our Frederick a disciple of St. Boniface the Anglo-Saxon, and a nephew on the following page, sufficiently indicating that he believed St. Frederick to have been at least by origin an Englishman, while he thus concludes the summary of his Life, which we shall exhibit in the third paragraph: "Which therefore, beyond the matter, I thought not useless to bring forward to those who will read outside, that it may be reckoned to the glory of the English, that they illustrated foreign lands, sanctity even making a pilgrimage." When Malmesbury says that St. Frederick was a disciple of St. Boniface, he is to be understood of a mediate discipleship, unless one wish to make St. Frederick nearly a hundred years old: for since St. Boniface underwent martyrdom in the year 755, and St. Frederick was crowned with the same laurel in the year 838, more than eighty years intervene between the martyrdom of each, as will be clear to one making the reckoning.

[11] I marvel that the English hagiologists in their Martyrologies and other sacred fasti make no mention of this Saint, as their own countryman; he is placed between the Frisians and the English. nay, that most historians of the same nation keep deep silence about him: for thus far I have found among them only Nicholas Harpsfield, archdeacon of Canterbury, who in the Ecclesiastical History of England, century IX, chapter 15, thus speaks of him: "It remains that we review also some other Englishmen, who by their presence, doctrine, and piety adorned and illustrated foreign regions too in this century … Signally among others shone Frederick of Devon, who was adorned with the episcopate of Utrecht. He was the disciple and nephew of that Boniface of Mainz, and, as some write, the companion of his Roman pilgrimage." The Roman journey of St. Frederick, which he is said to have undertaken together with St. Boniface, I can by no means reconcile with his age indicated above. It seems easier to me that the Frisians and the English, contending about the birth of St. Frederick, can be reconciled. Perhaps Harpsfield surnames him "of Devon," because he thought that his parents or grandparents were born in the province of the West Saxons and the territory of Devon. But St. Frederick could be born in Frisia of Anglo-Saxon parents or grandparents, who had followed Boniface their kinsman setting out into Frisia, and thus be called by origin "of Devon," because his parents were sprung from this province of England. At least in this way the opinion of William of Malmesbury and Nicholas Harpsfield does not contradict those writers who wish him to have been born only in Frisia, and do not trace his genealogy from the ancient stemma of the princes of Frisia.

[12] Another question is, what institute of life our Saint professed before the episcopate. His profession of life is examined, We have already seen above, number 6, that he is ascribed in our manuscript Florarium to the Order of Regular Canons: but as that is asserted without proof, so also it is denied without refutation. Hugh Menard, book 2 of the observations on his Benedictine Martyrology, page 641, mentions St. Frederick as a religious of the Order of St. Benedict, and brings forward at least some reasons for his opinion. First of all he cites these words of William of Malmesbury: "At Utrecht was Frederick: him, breathing the nectar of the sanctity of Boniface, as being his nephew and disciple, Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, promoted thither." Menard from this passage of Malmesbury thus argues: "Which words sufficiently hint that this holy Frederick was a Benedictine monk: since he was the disciple of St. Boniface, namely instructed by him in the monastic discipline, whence also he imitated his sanctity. For St. Boniface never opened a literary school. It is added, that the clerics of Utrecht, in whose number was St. Frederick, were then monks, as we have taught elsewhere." But neither our Acts, nor other monuments which survive of St. Frederick, call him a monk. The reasons alleged by Menard could not move the most learned members of the Benedictine Order, Luc d'Achery and Jean Mabillon, to place him among the Saints of their Order. Nay, Mabillon, illustrating the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, century IV of the Benedictines, part 2, page 582, sufficiently shows that he does not admit this monkhood, while he thus speaks of the cause of Frederick's slaying, narrated by some: "Menard reads that Judith was married by Louis the Pious, his lawful wife being repudiated. This cause is false, the other doubtful, to say nothing of Frederick's monkhood."

[13] It is not sufficiently established in what year St. Frederick ascended the episcopal chair. Le Cointe in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, volume 8, page 26, and the epoch of the episcopate. thinks this was done in the year 826. However it be, certainly that St. Frederick was bishop in the year 828 is clear from the donation of Gerowald made to the church of Utrecht, to which it is thus subscribed: "Done publicly in the villa of Emmerich in the 15th year of the empire of Louis, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 828, on the VII Ides of February … I, Geraccarus, by command of our lord Frederick himself, wrote and subscribed." While St. Frederick to the diocese of Utrecht

presided, there was made by Wibert and his son Walbert another donation to the same church, whose year is thus marked below: "But it was done publicly in the villa of Oesterblech on the eighth Kalends of January, in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ eight hundred and thirty-four, Indiction twelfth, and in the 21st year of the reign of the most glorious Augustus emperor Louis … I, Bernold, unworthy presbyter, by command of Frederick the bishop, wrote and subscribed." Another donation too of the same year Wilhelm Heda brings forward in the history of the bishops of Utrecht; but this double instrument, which in the Batavia Sacra, edited not long ago, is produced whole, seems sufficient to convince those who either circumscribe the episcopate of St. Frederick within two years, or first attribute the episcopal infula to him after the year 830. St. Frederick therefore must have been raised to the episcopate of Utrecht between the year 825 and 828, since Rixfrid his predecessor is read to have been still surviving in the year 824 in the diploma of Louis the Pious, which Heda exhibits whole in the work just cited, with me on page 45. The deeds distinguishedly done by St. Frederick when already bishop, such as the conversion of the incestuous people of Walcheren, and the instruction of the Frisians thinking ill of the most holy Trinity, and others which are narrated in our Acts, can only by conjecture be reduced to the exact reckonings of chronology. Wherefore I put an end to this number by reviewing a certain little work which our Saint (probably in the time of his episcopate) is said to have written. Valerius Andreas in the Belgian Library of the second edition, page 249, thus commemorates it: "Frederick wrote a splendid oration on the Holy Trinity, by which the Frisians were once wont to use against the specters appearing in the shape of white women." I suspect that this oration is the same of which mention is made in our Acts, number 30.

[14] Blessed Rabanus, a contemporary, in prose, In how great veneration our holy Prelate was among his contemporaries, appears from Blessed Rabanus Maurus, abbot of Fulda, and afterward archbishop of Mainz, who at the request of St. Frederick expounded the book of Joshua, to which he prefixed a dedicatory epistle, which in the Chifflet manuscript and the edition of Mabillon, century IV of the Benedictines, part 2, page 42, thus has: "To the most blessed lord, and, by the office of true charity, greatly to be venerated, Frederick the bishop, Rabanus, most vile servant of the servants of God, health in Christ. Thy zeal and diligence in the meditation of the sacred Scriptures, many who have known thy Sanctity praise; and deservedly, because thou art assiduous in reading, and frequent in teaching, as the reason of thy Order demands, which the Savior calls the light of the world with the Apostles; and he has set the lamp, illumined by the true light, upon the candlestick, that thou mayest shine to all who are in the house of God. Whence very many of the brethren cultivate thy veneration, and by cultivating love it; and to us thence thou art very lovable, that thou provokest not only the present, but even the absent with brotherly love, and incitest with salutary exhortation, that we may exercise with thee the common business of God's law. Nor is it absurd, what thou doest, though we for this office are unequal and unworthy; since thou seekest there the confirmation of the sacred law, whence thou receivedst the beginning of the Christian religion. For the most holy prelate, and most blessed martyr of Christ Boniface converted the nation of the Frisians, over which thy love presides, not only by word, but even by the shedding of his own blood, to the faith of Christ." Then after other things which do not so nearly pertain to us, and which may be seen in Mabillon in the cited place, he thus concludes his epistle: "We desire thee to fare well, holy Father, and to be mindful of us in thy sacred prayers. May the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy life forever."

[15] Blessed Rabanus also composed a poem to the honor of the same holy Prelate, and in a poem praises St. Frederick, which our Christoph Brower, among the poems of that writer, edited tenth in order thus:

Come, nourishing Spirit, to compose sweet verses for me, That thou mayest grant me to send gifts to my beloved father. Who, as soon as known, clung to me a faithful friend, Not by my merit, but by his own goodness. The Spirit, seeing him full of the gift of piety, Raised him himself from a lowly to a lofty place: In which the true sentence of the Gospel was proved, Which abides, uttered by the voice of the Savior: Who shows himself humble, is exalted on high, And who seeks proud things, falls prone to the depths. So thee, dear father, prelate, holy priest, The Lord has raised above many thousands, That thou mayest tell the word of faith with clear speech, That thou mayest be the way, the leader of the people to the sacred kingdoms of God. Christ called you the light of the world, and you the lamp, You also the salt of the earth; this remember piously. Behold, let your light shine, like the splendid sun to the world; Let your work become great glory to God. Let good doctrine establish the wavering hearts of the guilty, Lest they rot badly, nor the worm devour them. I ask thy name, that thou mayest see what it contains, And so by the example thou canst learn thy deeds. So it piously admonishes, resounding: avenge the covenant, Which by a twin sense can rightly be turned. That thy vengeance may cut the covenant with the vices of men, And piously confirm everywhere the covenant of Christ. The care of thy parents gave thee this name of old, When thou hadst borne baptism by thy lot. Now too let this order confer the name greatly on thee: Weighing well, learn the mystic gifts of God. For, overseeing piously, thou thyself art called bishop, Which admonishes that thou always do all things cautiously. So, nourishing father, may thou now do, as thou thyself art called, And by both name and action thy deed is worthy. Skillful mayest thou watch over all, an honest pastor, And may worthy vengeance of God defend the covenant. And be mindful of us, be instant with sacred prayers For those devoted to thee always everywhere piously. For with prayers we knock on Christ with perpetual vow, That he may rightly rule thy times from the heavens. This too we all beseech with faithful mouth, This I, Rhabanus, also ever ask, O Frederick, That thou mayest live safe on earth for a long time, And after this mayest ascend the heavenly kingdoms of the pole. What I ask, mayest thou do, standing at the sacred altars, That thou mayest render me to Christ, holy father, by thy prayers. May Christ the King of heaven, King of earth, founder of the world, Make me to have a place of light with thee.

[16] whom we vindicate from the calumnies of a certain heretic, Rabanus here alludes to the German name of Frederick, by which properly "rich in peace" is signified, and renders the etymology of the German name Friderich twofold, so that it is the author of a peace or covenant entered upon and the avenger of one violated, as our Brower speaks in the scholia on this poem. But it comes to me to marvel that Arnold Buchel in the notes on Johann de Beka, page 26, was so impudent that after such testimonies of blessed Rabanus he dared impiously to rend the most upright fame of the most holy Man, and to depict him as a fosterer of discord and a calumniator of the best princes, whom incautious and ill-credulous antiquity numbered among the holy martyrs. I omit the other blasphemies of the same heretic, lest I offend Catholic ears. A foolish saying indeed of a proud man, by which he wishes to prefer his own assertion to all antiquity, which, by his own testimony, numbered Frederick among the holy martyrs. If Buchel was opposed to the Catholic cult of the Saints, he ought to have acquiesced in the testimony of the old writers, who praise Frederick bishop of Utrecht as a Saint; he ought also to have deferred something to the constant tradition of his own homeland, in which even the heterodox acknowledged Frederick at least as an honest man. He could have taken an example from Ubbo Emmius, who, however infected with heresy, in the history of Frisian affairs, book 5, at the year 838, thus modestly (if you except a few things uttered with a heretical spirit) speaks of the holy Prelate: "Hence another year, which was from the rising of Christ on earth 838, took away from the earth Frederick the eighth bishop of Utrecht, a great man and most worthy of all memory, if some superstition of that age had been absent." Then he wove a summary of his life, in which among other things he records this: "The honor of the episcopate being undertaken and held for some time, he bore so clear a name of industry, piety, prudence, that he easily surpassed all the other bishops of his age: to whom the Frisian church owed this among other things, that from the pestilent dogma of Arius, which perhaps in that age had crept in thither, it was vindicated especially by his care and zeal." And let these things be said for maintaining the due reverence to the holy Man. Now let us investigate the more probable epoch of his death.

[17] and whose slaying we think was more probably done in the year 838. Most writers consign the slaying of St. Frederick to the year 838: but Le Cointe, who in the Annals of the Franks, volume 8, page 542, fixes the same year of the Fredericean martyrdom, in the same volume, page 390, offers us a difficulty which he himself is compelled to solve: for there he contends that Humbert bishop of Würzburg died in the year 835. The hinge of the difficulty, which Le Cointe did not observe, turns on this, that Rabanus Maurus in the preface to the books of Judges and Ruth writes thus to this Humbert or Hunbert: "But the exposition of Joshua I lately transmitted to Freduric OF GOOD MEMORY, bishop of the church of Utrecht: this likewise, as it shall be returned to me, if it be God's will, I shall take care to commit to thee." If therefore Humbert died in the year 835, St. Frederick must have been slain before this year, as the words OF GOOD MEMORY sufficiently indicate, concerning which formula of speaking I disputed at greater length in the Preliminary Commentary to the Life of St. John Gualbert, number 126. I judge therefore rather, with the Würzburg chronicle, which Le Cointe himself praises, that Humbert died in the year 842. But the diploma of king Louis, granted to Gotzbald successor of Humbert, which Le Cointe objects, I conveniently explain with Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals, book 32, number 6. But Mabillon himself, in determining the year of the Fredericean death, manifestly contradicts himself: for in the Benedictine Annals, book 30, number 50, he thus writes of this matter: "Not long after he expounded the book of Joshua (namely Rabanus Maurus, of whose writings he there treats) at the request of Friduric bishop of Utrecht on the Rhine; certainly before the thirty-fourth year of this century (namely the ninth), in which the same Friduric was slain." Now hear Mabillon in the same Annals at the year of Christ 838, number 5, thus speaking: "Not long after, namely on the fifteenth Kalends of August of the same year (838), Frederick bishop of the church of Utrecht on the Rhine suffered death." In the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, century IV, part 2, page 41, he again assigns the year 834 to the martyrdom of St. Frederick. We adhere to the more common opinion of the year 838. And hence it is clear that even learned men, especially those who are overwhelmed by the multitude and variety of things to be written, sometimes forget themselves. This we think not alien from ourselves, and, if it ever happens, we desire to be pardoned. Now let us examine our Acts, and the cause of the slaying.

* Manuscript: Friduricho

* elsewhere "For" (Nam)

§ III. His Acts are examined, and the cause of the slaying.

We bring forward from the Utrecht manuscript the same Acts of St. Frederick, unless we are mistaken, which Laurentius Surius had in hand, Various writers of the Acts are enumerated, and edited with the style changed. We find them also in the parchment codex of our Museum, whose character is not very ancient: for the clause, added to the Acts at the end by the same hand, shows that the codex was written after the year 1362. The same is to be thought of our paper codex, in which the same Acts are read. These three exemplars are so similar that it is sufficiently apparent that they arose from the same fount; except that the scribe of the paper codex studiously omitted the more prolix orations, and narrated the facts more compendiously in nearly the same words. Johann de Beka, canon of Utrecht in the XIV century, and Wilhelm Heda, provost of Arnhem in the following century, reduced the Life of St. Frederick into a summary. A synopsis of the same Life is also contained in the Chronicle of Utrecht, page 18, which Anton Matthaeus edited among the Analecta of the old age, in the ninth little volume. William of Malmesbury inserted into the first book On the Deeds of the English Pontiffs no small part of the Fredericean Life, which a little later, on another occasion, we shall bring forward. Against these Acts, both the more prolix and the briefer, various writers rise up, especially the French, and charge them with fiction. Among others Charles le Cointe, in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, volume eight, at the year of Christ 838, from number 35 to 74, laboriously impugns the Acts edited by Surius. We shall afterward weigh the arguments of the French, and meanwhile investigate the antiquity of our Acts.

[19] The writer of the Acts betrays his age somehow in number 48 in these words: "But there are still very many witnesses of each sex surviving, [among whom a certain Oetbert seems to have written the Life of St. Frederick in the XI century,] who relate that in the times of the pious prelate Baldric a certain profane man managed the goods and all the treasure of the old temple after the sacristan," etc. But Baldric the XV bishop of Utrecht died, according to Johann de Beka, in the year 977. Whence Le Cointe in the Annals already mentioned, at the year 838, number 42, not badly thus infers: "The Acts therefore of Frederick were committed to writing by an author who lived in the eleventh century, and was removed from the passion of Frederick himself by nearly two hundred years." Hence again Baillet is convicted of error in the critical table prefixed to the month of July, and other his followers, who reject this writer to the XII or XIII century. Le Cointe thinks that these Acts of the XI century were afterward interpolated by someone. Although that is altogether doubtful, yet I shall easily grant that they were perhaps afterward amplified more verbosely by someone of later times, provided Le Cointe confess that the cause of the slaying was not first invented by the interpolator and inserted into those Acts, since William of Malmesbury adduced the same before the middle of the XII century. I think therefore that no very great change was made in the substance of the matter, even if perhaps the narration was afterward embellished with more words.

[20] as is confirmed from the prologue, No one thus far, so far as I know, has detected the name of the author, the occasion of the writing, and other things pertaining to him. I candidly confess that neither do I find them except by conjecture, to make which I was moved by the parchment codex of the monastery of Böddeken, in which are read the Acts of St. Frederick, whose beginning agrees altogether with ours thus: "Holy Frederick therefore, high priest of the Frisian nation, noble by race," etc. But to these Acts is prefixed the following prologue.

When I, little Oetbert, came, a boy indeed, With the venerable prelate Adawold to Utrecht, By whose zeal that place now shines with great splendor, I was soon led through the walls of the old temple For the sake of praying, truly, by a certain elder; Who, the tombs of the Saints being duly visited, Showed me the tomb of the great holy Frederick: He whose venerable life, weeping, he narrated, How he had been struck with knives in the entrails; (Which, at the persuasion, king Louis too saw and commanded.) Then I was zealous to stretch my body prone to the ground, And with all my strength to beg his pardon, That he might be my intercessor to the nourishing Lord. And what I asked, after this I quickly obtained. Therefore I desire to compose a small paper, If now the grace of Christ the highest grants it me, From his life, that a great admixture may not Take this from us, which the elder people now relate: Because the little book was perhaps already burned by the Danes, Which had been made from it great and ample, With many other books, when they utterly destroyed, alas, The venerable walls of the old city of Utrecht. Therefore our elders cannot be mindful Of what he did while living, while he remained in the flesh. But whatever they recall, or the truest things they know, Now with furrowing pen, slow, I shall be zealous to traverse. Behold, whoever thou shalt have looked at this paper, I ask thee, Wish not to deride me, O lord: for know that, ten years old, And an unlearned boy, I made it, being asked.

[21] Now let us illustrate that poem with some notes, and mingle our conjectures with them. from which also the author's name, age First of all I conjecture that the writer of the Fredericean Life, by name Oetbert (I do not wish to divine whether he was Otbert the disciple of Notger bishop of Liège, of whom mention is made in the Deeds of the Pontiffs of Liège in Chapeauville, volume 1, page 217), in the time of his boyhood came to Utrecht with the prelate of the church of Utrecht Adelbold, who is elsewhere called Albald, Athalbald, and perhaps also Adawald or Adawold. But since Oetbert says that then by the great zeal of Adawold that place shone, I gather that these Acts were written by Oetbert after the year 1015: for Johann de Beka thus writes of the buildings erected or restored by the care of Adelbold bishop of Utrecht: "Adelbold in the year of the Lord 1015 destroyed the church of Utrecht of old structure, laid the foundations of a new fabric, which with the church of Tiel he most decently completed in a few years." But of the same Wilhelm Heda thus speaks more at length, with me on page 109: "In the year 1027 died Adelbold the bishop, whose excellent wisdom is known to many, and who is everywhere proclaimed a man of the highest virtue and counsel. If it seemed good to anyone to doubt of this, let him look at Utrecht, augmented and adorned by him with various works, and the new monastery of St. Martin there founded and ordered by him with wonderful ingenuity, and with wonderful swiftness in a few years brought almost to perfection." Add that Oetbert asserts that he was led at Utrecht to the old temple, namely of St. Salvator, in which lay the body of St. Frederick, as if to distinguish it from the new St. Martin's, which Adelbold had built, or at least renovated.

[22] Besides, from this prologue we gather that the Life of St. Frederick was once written at length, and that it perished in the Danish devastation of the city of Utrecht. and the occasion of the writing we gather. This loss Oetbert tried somehow to repair by committing to writing what he had heard from the elders, although he does not deny that very many deeds of St. Frederick were consigned to oblivion. But since he says that he only wishes to compose a small paper of his deeds, I suspect that some things were afterward added to our Acts, prolix enough, unless perhaps he calls his paper or writing "small" in respect to the older little book, which he affirms was great and ample. However it be, nearly two hundred years after the death of St. Frederick he wrote those things which he had received from the common tradition of the elders. But what Oetbert adds at the end concerning his age of ten years, in which he wrote these things, I interpret in a twofold way. Perhaps the author wishes to signify that he heard them at Utrecht at ten years old, and after some years committed what he had heard to writing. Perhaps also he wished to indicate that he wrote them as a very young man, say of fifteen or sixteen years, and used a round number, which was necessary to him for the meter. For although the anachronisms and other errors can be ascribed to youthful ignorance, yet the whole writing, as it now stands, does not seem to suit a boy of ten years. Let these things about the Acts and their prologue suffice. Now let us come to the controverted cause of the Fredericean slaying.

[23] The already mentioned collector of the Acts, and most other writers following him, narrate that holy Frederick was slain by assassins at the persuasion of queen Judith, [Baronius is not consistent with himself concerning the cause of the Fredericean slaying,] because he had reprehended her incestuous nuptials with Louis the Pious. To this opinion adheres the most eminent Cardinal Baronius, when in the notes on the Roman Martyrology he compares holy Frederick to St. John the Baptist, and Judith to Herodias. But he embraced quite another opinion in the Ecclesiastical Annals, when at the year of Christ 838, number 3, he thus speaks: "For while they relate that in this year Frederick bishop of Utrecht accomplished his martyrdom, they relate the cause, which I think fabricated, in this manner." Then, the cause being related which we have already indicated, he thus judges of our Acts, number 7: "But because in them the emperor Louis is much rent on account of the marriage, but those bishops are praised who were the authors of his deposition, in whose accusations brought against him no mention at all is made of these things, and many things also not agreeing with the times are likewise heaped up, they have come into suspicion of having been fabricated by another, who then opposed Louis. But also since I have found thus far none of the ancients who comes as a witness to these writings, they persist with me of the more suspect faith, and I would think that rather another cause of the slaying of the most holy Man preceded." Baronius is deceived when he suspects that these Acts were composed in the time of Louis the Pious by some adversary of his; as is manifest from what was said above. Yet I do not deny that this report, perhaps spread by the enemies of Louis and Judith, remained at Utrecht, and so afterward from the narration of the elders was brought into these Acts.

[24] which William of Malmesbury This accusation of Judith must have been common enough in the XI and XII centuries: for William of Malmesbury before the middle of the XII century consigned the same cause of the slaying to memory, when in book 1 On the Deeds of the English Pontiffs, page 197, he wove such a summary of the Fredericean Life: "But because so often mention of this man Boniface, who before was called Winfrid, has offered itself, I shall commit to writing something not so heard by all and memorable concerning Frederick his disciple, which has reached my ears: for the sanctity of the master too can be conjectured from the virtue of the disciple, that he had at home whence he might learn not to fear the powerful, to despise death … A not too hasty successor to Eoban, on account of the ferocity of the nation, at Utrecht was Frederick. Him, breathing the nectar of the sanctity of Boniface, as being his nephew and disciple, Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, promoted thither, although many strove both for themselves and for their own: and on the first day of his ordination he honored the new prelate with a seat at his right at dinner. A great part of the meal therefore being consumed, the emperor's speech is directed to him, that, mindful of his recent profession, and a follower of the constancy of his predecessors, without respect of persons he should propose the truth, and denounce anathema to the contemners.

But he, with bashful eye and lowered head, said: 'Rightly, lord emperor, thou doest, who exhortest the tenderness of my profession with holy encouragements: but, I pray thee, let not thy majesty be burdened to resolve what the recesses of my mind have long revolved. And that examples be not sought far off: is it more honorable to attack this fish set upon the table from the head, or from the tail?' He, over-hasty, and not knowing how much he was ensnaring himself, answered, 'From the head.' And without delay Frederick seized the word, saying: 'So let it go, lord Augustus, so let it go, that faith and Christian piety may securely urge thee concerning thy errors, lest thy subjects dare to spurn what they have seen thee tolerate. Renounce therefore the incestuous marriage which thou hast contracted: because that Judith, whom thou hast joined to thy side, is near to thee in kindred blood; nor is it fitting that the royal bed be defamed with lust.'

[25] Although Louis had taken this saying ill, yet with modest taciturnity he absolved it, at the persuasion of queen Judith, and hastily released the bishop to go to his own see. But nevertheless the speech, poured out in so great a frequency of palatines, could not be hidden, but that it disquieted the ears of all the bishops of the region, ulcerated their hearts, with no frivolous grief of those conferring, that a new bishop had promulgated with open liberty such things as the old ones themselves had not condemned even with silent murmur. Wherefore, roused to the hearing, they engaged in frequent councils, that, the marriage being dissolved, the emperor should live celibate. And so they shut him up in a workhouse, the woman in a monastery, Lothair the firstborn of Louis striving as much as possible, as I said above, as he kept saying, by the instinct of Christianity, but really under the pretext of envy. But afterward, by the mediation of the piety of the Apostolic see, it was decreed by a milder council, that, a penance being enjoined, they should thereafter rejoice in a lawful marriage: and the emperor indeed willingly yielded to the sentence, casting off rancor against all by the benignity of his mind. But Judith, exhaling a feminine poison, and, in the assembly of her own, complaining of the injuries of Frederick bishop of Utrecht, by whose authorship especially she had suffered evils, found two who would promise their service for his killing. Nor were these things hidden from the Prelate, who was a sanctuary of the very deity; but he awaited the coming executioners undismayed, and, a desire for martyrdom impatient, accused the delays of the wretches. So on the very morning, on which he knew they would come, he prepares himself for Mass. And now he had put on the alb, when the boy, whose office it was to admit those wishing to meet his lord, entering, announces that the empress's legates stand before the doors. He, the impediment being excused, orders them meanwhile to wait in the dining-room.

[26] The Mass being sung, as he was clothed in the sacred vestments, he entered the sacristy, was accomplished, he narrates; and orders the lictors to be brought in thither, the witnesses being removed. Those entering he so struck by the clearness of his aspect and the reverence of his vestments, that, falling in their spirits, they even let the daggers fall from their hands. Which he perceiving, who had cast off the present life in hope of the future, of his own accord animated the assassins to accomplish that for which they had come, exhorting them to resume their spirits, to repair their strength. So (because wickedness is easy to persuade) attacking him as he sat, one drew his dagger from the breast to the groin, the other through the midst of the flanks. Then he, grasping and constraining with both hands his flowing vitals: 'Depart,' he said, 'wretched ones, while the matter is hidden from my faithful, lest, if they catch you, it be over with you.' But the assassins, adding to the swiftness of their feet the spurs of fear, ran down to the Rhine, and thence by the strength of their arms drove the boat across. The chamberlain meanwhile coming up, and asking why he sat thus bloodless, he sent away in confusion, ordering him quickly to look out from the wall whether the empress's messengers had crossed the Rhine: and, having learned that the length of their flight had procured a difficulty of catching them, he ordered the clergy to be quickly convoked, being himself the expositor of the whole tragedy in both speech and sense. The antiphon therefore being imposed by himself, 'Open to me the gates of justice,' and the rest, living he composed himself in the mausoleum, having attained heaven by a beautiful and venerable death. Which therefore, beyond the matter, I thought not useless to bring forward to those who will read outside, that it may be reckoned to the glory of the English, that they illustrated foreign lands, sanctity even making a pilgrimage."

This narration of William of Malmesbury differs from the author of our Acts in certain circumstances; but in assigning the cause of the slaying it agrees plainly with him. Whence I cannot assent to Le Cointe, who in the Annals of the Franks at the year of Christ 838, number 46, thinks that this cause of the slaying was fabricated by some interpolator of later time: for although I do not deny, as I said above, that some things were afterward added or inserted to the Acts, yet I judge that the substance of the matter and the same cause of the slaying was committed to writing by Oetbert from the narration of the elders.

[27] and against the narration of him and others the French argue, The more recent French, nearly all, strive to free Judith from this sacrilegious homicide, and impugn the common narration, from whomsoever at last it proceeded, by a negative argument, which indeed here does not lack its own force. "In the domestic dissensions," they say, "nothing was objected by the stepsons of Judith concerning incestuous nuptials. Read the things written by the fosterers of the Lotharian party in favor of Ebbo archbishop of Reims, Agobard metropolitan of Lyon, Jesse bishop of Amiens, and Wala abbot of Corbie, whom Louis and Judith held hostile to themselves beyond the rest. Read also the Apologetic book and other little works by which Agobard himself defended his cause. Turn and turn again the Acts by which the deposition of Louis the Pious is described: in them indeed Louis is called a disturber of the peace, unjust and inconstant in dividing the kingdom among his sons, unmindful of his office, sluggish in the administration of the kingdom, a contemner of ancient customs and of the Christian religion, and other crimes are objected to him; but Judith is accused of adultery and other crimes: but in so great an abundance of writers you will find no word at all of incestuous nuptials between Louis and Judith. But yet this consanguinity would have most contributed to the end intended by Lothair and his followers, by which they strove to separate Judith from Louis. Whence the French conclude that this cause of the slaying was fabricated in our Acts."

[28] whose argument being weighed, the dispute is left undecided. I candidly confess that this argument of the French so binds, that I despair of a clear solution of it. Nonetheless, to diminish its force, it could be answered that St. Frederick perhaps first detected or freely reprehended that bond of consanguinity, concerning which afterward, by the mediation of the piety of the Apostolic see, it was decreed by a milder council, "that, a penance being enjoined, they should thereafter rejoice in a lawful marriage," as William of Malmesbury cited above speaks. But thence it follows that in the Acts of the deposition, and the other accusations of Louis the Pious, that impediment of marriage ought not to have been objected, if it had already been removed by the authority of the Roman Pontiff. It could also happen, according to Malmesbury, that the imperious and unchaste woman (such she is called in the apologetic book of St. Agobard) kept hatred against St. Frederick, as opposing her ambition, and afterward, opportunity of vengeance being given, ordered him to be killed. But this conjecture, as uncertain, we leave. Indeed I do not understand how this horrid accusation against the queen prevailed at Utrecht and other places from antiquity, if Judith was in no way guilty of the Fredericean slaying. Yet I would not burden the memory of that queen, whom about the year 836 blessed Rabanus in the preface to the books of Judith and Esther thus praises in Mabillon in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, century IV, part 2, page 42: "To the chosen lady, and deservedly of great piety, by all to be venerated and loved, Judith the empress, Hrabanus, servant of the servants of God, humbly wishes eternal salvation in Christ. Since the loftiness of your greatness and the largess of your benignity, which has learned to profit not only friends but also enemies, instructed from the mouth of the Lord himself, makes very many devoted to it; we too, however small a part of the people committed to you by God, living under your piety, think to exhibit a devoted service … For the rest, because I have found you to excel in praiseworthy genius, and to imitate the virtues and zeal in good work of the holy women whom sacred Scripture commemorates," etc. Here blessed Rabanus renders the reason why he dedicates his work to her, and congratulates her on her enemies conquered, and prays a further victory over the same rivals. You see here Judith depicted by Rabanus as a pious woman, who is accused by St. Agobard and others of ambition and wantonness. Since therefore the contemporary writers themselves do not agree about the morals of Judith, we are compelled to leave the dispute of the Fredericean slaying undecided, until from somewhere certain arguments be drawn out, by which this narration of our Acts may be confirmed, or convicted of manifest fiction. We meanwhile subjoin here from the Utrecht manuscript of St. Salvator the Acts, such as they are, concerning which let the reader's judgment be free.

* read "persuading" (suadens)

* perhaps "oblivion" (oblivio)

* read "who" (qui)

* it abounds; "of books" or "of the old" (veteris)

* read "Eoban" (Eobano)

* perhaps "to be dared" (audendum)

THE ACTS, PERHAPS BY THE AUTHOR OETBERT

From the Utrecht manuscript of St. Salvator.

Frederick, Bishop and Martyr, at Utrecht in Belgium (S.)

BHL Number: 3157

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.

CHAPTER I.

The boyhood of St. Frederick, his pious instruction, clericate, virtues, and priesthood.

Holy Frederick therefore, high priest ^a of the Frisian nation, noble by race, but nobler was in sanctity. St. Frederick, piously passing his boyhood, For in his first age he led a life more angelic than earthly: since, mingling himself with the assemblies of men fearing God, he wholly withdrew himself from the games of his coevals. He ran willingly to church, and whatever there was read or sung, he attentively heard, and, returning home, reported to his mother the words which he understood. On account of this his mother, made glad, not by the will of the father, committed him to be taught his letters to certain fathers, and, frequenting them with gifts and prayers, asked that they should teach him the path of holy religion, and to shun the habit of evil.

[2] by his mother he is delivered to Ricfrid bishop of Utrecht to be instructed, Meanwhile it was seen by her from heaven in the still of the night, that she should take the boy thence, and commend him to St. Ricfrid ^b, pontiff of the church of Utrecht. She, soon filled with immense joy, because she knew that the divine clemency ruled him, the father, though unwilling, going along at the same time, led him as far as Utrecht, and commended him to the said pontiff. But the Prelate, foreseeing by the spirit of prophecy that after his death he ought to succeed him in the pontifical rule, imbued him, as a son and heir, thoroughly with both liberal and ecclesiastical doctrines: but he himself conversed for the better, and always ascended the degrees of holy virtues.

[3] by whom, with the minor Orders, For when the most holy youth, still living under the schools, had been increased with the four blessings ^c, he did not neglect his office which had been enjoined on him, but rendered to all, both greater and lesser, a clear exposition of doctrines ^d. Whomsoever within the house of God he saw straying in laughter or any jest, kindly and sweetly he admonished them not so to do, and taught them how they ought to act in the cult of religion. But many who had been held by the harmful fault of the first parent he catechized; and, a herald of the perpetual light which illumines the whole world, he drove away from them the light-fleeing demons. To evangelize the Gospel of God to the peoples

he was always prepared, recalling the Scripture saying: "Cry, cease not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and announce to my people their crimes." The prudent hearing him became more prudent, and, while he spoke, put his finger to his mouth.

[4] and being initiated into the subdiaconate, Then, when he put his hand to the plow, and looked not back, that he might be fitted for the kingdom of God, he is ordained subdeacon. But when with a desire ^e of a holier life he began, by vigils and prayers and continual fasts, for the name of Christ, to afflict his body, and to count human glory as nothing, knowing that "when man dies, he shall take away all things, nor shall the glory of his house descend with him." Whatever also he had of his goods, he caused to be conveyed by the hands of the wretched into the kingdom of heaven, where neither by rust nor by moths they might be demolished, nor by thieves be dug out. Wherefore in that heavenly shrine he always had his heart intent, in which he knew his treasure to be laid up. For he was a true Israelite, in whose spirit no guile was nourished, or from whose mouth no lie was ever heard to have gone out.

[5] he shines with various virtues, He harmed no one, defrauded no one, or held in hatred: to no one did he what he did not wish done to himself. For the communion of the body and blood of the Lord, the bearer of the sacred vessels, he kept himself clean and chaste from wives, and free from nearly all carnal uncleanness: so to those who are of this Order it is commanded by the prophet saying: "Be clean, ye who bear the vessels of the Lord." After the glorious Man was made a deacon, how he sweated in the service of God day and night, no versatile tongue of any orator can comprehend in words. He was therefore, according to the apostolic precept, chaste, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not following base gain, avoiding foolish fables, not rebuking the elders, not despising the younger, having the mystery ^f of faith in a good conscience. He had truly been an example of the faithful in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in chastity, in patience, in humility, in temperance, in all probity of morals, acquiring for himself the best degree, and much confidence in Christ Jesus. So great also was the ardor of the Holy Spirit in him, that he could neither be broken by adversities, nor lifted up by prosperities.

[6] Therefore Lord Ricfrid, when he saw him shine with such virtues, on account of which he is ordained priest. was filled with exceeding joy, that he deserved to have such a successor; and, ordering him to be second after him, ordained him, though unwilling, presbyter. But his name, the divine clemency providing, throughout the whole earth suddenly became so distinguished ^g, that it even struck the royal ears, and he was honored by all, as an apostolic man, when the pontiff Ricfrid, a man to be proclaimed for all goodness, being touched a little by a fever, full of days, as had been foreordained by God, rendered the earthly to earth, but to the Lord what was his, most distinguished, and thronged with legions of angels, sent back his spirit. Him being honorably buried, the clergy and people, inspired by the Holy Spirit, say that they will not elect or set over them another bishop than Frederick, namely a venerable man.

ANNOTATIONS.

* read "to be done" (agi).

CHAPTER II.

Promotion to the episcopate after a long refusal.

Ricfrid being dead, he is demanded for the episcopate; Meanwhile king Louis, son of the prince Charlemagne, coming by chance into a certain city near the Rhine, had brought with him Judith his wife to be consecrated, since, lest she should be excommunicated by the bishops, because she was his kinswoman, he did not dare to keep her in the parts of Gaul. He also, the death of the prelate being learned, had commanded by legates his elders of the holy church of Utrecht that they should acclaim blessed Frederick their bishop, and lead the elect with the highest honor to his palace, not knowing that it was the will of all, which had been also his and his nobles'.

[8] but he, resisting this demand, As soon as the Man of God knew this, he humbly excused himself as worthy of so great an honor, and by himself wicked, if he should become their pontiff. But the people crying out on the contrary that none could be found more worthy than he, whom they wished to have as their ruler, the Man of God, groaning, grew numb, and, weeping before all, said: "Since I am a sinful man, how can I be a pastor of God's sheep? Why do you wish to have me for a ruler, who, alas, know not the king, of all of whom I know myself to be the lowest and most worn out? Let me alone," he said, "have done, and turn yourselves to another more worthy than I; because you will find nothing stable in me that is pleasing to God. Therefore, according to the testimony of Paul the apostle, as you know, a bishop must be irreproachable, sober, prudent, adorned, chaste, hospitable, a teacher, peaceable ^b, not given to wine, not a striker, but modest, not litigious, not covetous, not a neophyte, well set over his own house. Therefore, while I know not how to preside over my own house, how shall I have care of the church of God; and I who cannot draw out the beam of sin from my own eye, in what manner shall I cut the mote from the eyes of others?"

[9] is summoned to the king, These and other like things being now said, powerful men were again sent from the palace, who announced to him that, if he wished to have the king's favor, he should come to him, as quickly as he could, with the elders near the Rhine. But he, without delay rising: "The command of our king," he said, "is not to be gainsaid, but for his service whatever he shall command must be done by us." For, speaking these things, he thought to excuse himself before the king, that he was not worthy of the prelacy, and to make void the decree of the people: and so, crossing the Rhine, he came as far as the king's palace. Whom, when Louis, with lifted eyes, saw standing opposite him: "I gladly congratulate thee, servant of God, on thy coming," he said, and, a kiss being given, asked him to go and sit upon a chair set for him. Then, all who were present being summoned, the chief men ^c and the magnates of the palace, the king asks the people whom they desire to have as ruler of Utrecht, and promises to set over them the same whom they should wish to elect. To whom all, while still at rest, from the least to the greatest, gave such an answer: "As the Lord God lives, no other is elected today than lord Frederick, who is present. Him we acknowledge, he from his infancy has conversed with us; the work which was pleasing to God he has hitherto wrought." Which said, the king orders the blessed priest that, clothed in the priestly vestment, he should approach to be ordained, saying that this was the will of God, which all had in mind, and that he ought by no means to resist against it.

[10] But the Man of God, when he drank in these things, rose with tears springing up, and in vain struggling, and, prostrate, adored the king, and says: "I beseech thee, my lord king, do not acquiesce to them in what they ask: but let them elect, at thy command, one holier than I, and whatever I possess by hereditary right, I hand over to thee by firm stipulation, if thou wilt be my helper in these things. For a pastor is of no avail who, at the wolf's coming, can be the defender neither of himself nor of the flock. I cannot protect the flock of God, because I cannot drive the wolf from myself. I, a shameful man, fear to become bishop of the holy people, because I know not how to make firm what is weak, to heal the sick, to bind up the broken, to bring back the cast-off, to seek the lost. It is a fearful thing, Paul the apostle testifying, to fall into the hands of the living God, whose voice, threatening through the prophet, is this: 'Woe to the pastors who feed themselves.' And likewise: 'Behold, I myself will require my flock from the hand of the pastors, and will exact the blood of him who perishes in the day of tribulation from them.'"

[11] When he thus drew out his speech at length, after a long prayer, the king, adjuring him by the name of Christ, delivered to him the pastoral staff; and ordered him too to be ordained bishop in his presence. But he, when he saw that he could by no means excuse himself, sad, a multitude of soldiers following, entered the holy temple to be ordained, and, spreading and raising his palms to heaven, poured out this prayer, groaning, to the Lord: "Lord God almighty, who in perfect Trinity dominatest and reignest, to whom all secrets are known, who art the searcher of reins and hearts, thou knowest how unwilling and compelled I come to rule the prelacy, because I know not myself to be such in mind and body as I know thee to wish me to have; yet above all these I believe, O most pious and most loving Lord, that this is thy will: therefore I beseech thee with all groanings, since to thee alone have I sinned, and done evil before thee up to the present, that thou forgive me the offenses of my youth and my ignorances, and grant pardon of past evils, and guard me from future ones, that, brought back to the way of truth, I may be able night and day to meditate on thy law, and to search it, and to do what is pleasing in thy eyes. Heal me, King of eternal glory, physician of physicians, cure of the sick, recovery of all men hoping in thee, save me and I shall be saved; because thou art my praise, my light,

my peace, my hope, my glory, my beauty, my blessedness, my refuge, my life, my strength, my consolation, my illumination, my crown, who livest and reignest unto all the ages of ages. Amen.

[12] poured out to God, Merciful and compassionate one, who willest no one to perish, but all to be saved, it repents me of my crimes, which against thy precepts I have hitherto done, therefore receive me, penitent and a sinner, trusting in thy mercy; because thou hast said: 'As I live, I will not the death of the sinner, but rather that he be converted and live.' O Lord who hearest, hear me praying, as thou didst hear the thief while he hung on the cross, late repenting, and give me the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of knowledge and piety, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, and the spirit of thy fear, and put thy word in my mouth, whereby I may teach thy people according to thy will, and make me strong and stable in thy ceremonies, that, girt about with the arms of thy protection, I may overcome all who act against me and thy flock committed to me, visible and invisible. Confirm me in every good work, and direct my steps in thy paths, and let not the foot of pride come to me, nor the hand of the sinner move me. Set a watch to my mouth, and a door of circumspection to my lips, that no false word go out from them in thy sight, but what is at all times pleasing to thee: for guard thy flock, King of kings, and Lord of lords, pastor of pastors, to whom I, a criminal, am to be preferred as a pastor, lest the ravening wolf, going about and seeking whom he may devour, drag off some sheep from it, or tear it in pieces; but let thy holy right hand always protect and cherish it. Thou knowest, Lord, what thing I need, and what I ought to ask: make me ready as I hope and trust in thee."

[13] may he be bishop, and is received at the king's banquet. When the end of the prayer was scarcely finished, the king, coming up with other bishops, caused the aforesaid Saint to be ordained, wonderfully solicitous about the frequent ministry. But the clergy and people, greatly gladdened by his blessings, what praise, what thanksgiving they rendered to the Lord, it is long to narrate one by one. But when that which pertained to the divine work was accomplished, the emperor invited the clergy and all who were present, noble and ignoble, to his banquet, and for love of the most blessed Man led that day, as a very great feast, with great gladness, to evening. But Lord Frederick, mindful of the example of Cecilia, although in body he seemed to be present at the banquet, yet in spirit feasted with the Lord, silently revolving with himself these verses: "Feed me, Lord, with the bread of life, and the water of wisdom, and give me the wine of compunction to drink, since thou hast given a signal to those who fear thee, that they may flee from the face of the bow." Then, the dinner being consumed, rising, in his accustomed manner he had leisure in the divine word, begging from the Lord a remedy for his crimes: he did not make little in his mind of what had been committed to him in the episcopate.

ANNOTATIONS.

* that is "more defiled" (magis inquinatum)

* read "to be ordained" (ordinandus)

* read "whose" (cujus)

CHAPTER III.

The reprehension made by St. Frederick to the king on account of his unlawful nuptials.

The nocturnal time therefore being passed, and the morning-star put to flight, the sun now rising a second time, the king, revolving in his mind that on account of the unlawful marriage he might perhaps be cursed by blessed Frederick, [The king exhorts the new bishop to remove the incestuous nuptials of the people of Walcheren,] ordered him to be summoned, and, appeasing him before the prelates who were present, addresses him with such words: "The Lord has chosen thee, dearest, for himself as a great priest, because he has known thee fit for this work: but that the opinion of thee in the pursuit of preaching and admonition may remain, have care (suppliantly, I pray thee) of the fierce maritime nations: for there is an island, named Walcheren, well enough known to thee, as I think, in which, alas! (which lately came to my ears) whoever takes in marriage a niece, or, what is worse, a sister, or even his own mother. But that same island, as is known to all, thy holy predecessors, holding the plow rightly by not looking round, cultivated, and what remained uncultivated they without doubt left to thee to cultivate. Wherefore I adjure thee by the living God, that if anyone noble or ignoble, lord or servant, rich or poor, shall have erred from the Christian religion, and shall have polluted himself with such crimes as we said above, as soon as it shall come to thy hearing, thou correct him, and if, corrected, he be not returned from his depraved way, and heed not thee or the Church, by the authority delivered to thee thou separate and condemn him from the communion of all who believe in God, that he be to thee as a heathen and a publican, until he be converted to our Lord, who is ever ready to have mercy, if, led by true penance."

[15] Which said, the glorious Prelate groaned, and on the contrary answered: but parabolically by St. Frederick "With a great oath indeed, lord, thou hast bound me: but if, saving thy grace, I shall do these things, tell me?" To whom the king, as if now secure of him, said: "Not only saving my grace shalt thou do these things, but also, if thou wilt, thou shalt have me as a helper in all things." To which he, filled with the Holy Spirit and mindful of the speech to Jeremiah saying: "I have given thee a strong prover among my people, that thou mayest know and prove their way," inclined to the king and says: "Tell me, I pray, my lord emperor, whether it is more right to begin eating a fish at the head or at the tail, or first to lead a wall on high, and afterward to place the foundation?"

[16] But the king, when he drank it in, wondering with himself what such an interrogation could mean, said: "A fish, as I think to be true, is begun to be eaten at the head, and so is consumed to the tail. The foundation is first placed, and then the wall raised on high, because without a foundation the work is by no means made stable." "Well," said holy Frederick, "hast thou judged. Therefore thee, whom God has set as the true head and foundation of his holy Church, that thou mightest be for a good example to all, I shall attack, and, the vices being removed in the head, and the foundation firmly placed, through the body I come, as far as I can, by God's help, to the tail, and raise the wall on high. And so, lord, thou thinkest thou standest: therefore, although the fall is grave, beware lest thou fall more gravely. For thou hast joined to thee in marriage Judith thy niece, namely the daughter of Welp duke of the Bavarians, whom if thou dismiss not, and do not a penance worthy of God for the things committed, I foretell to thee that a very great destruction of thy kingdom will be to thee, and that this saying of the Lord will be truly fulfilled in thee: 'Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. But brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father the son, and children shall rise up against parents, and put them to death.'"

[17] and by many reasons, "These things, if they shall not be fulfilled in thy times, thou canst, God being propitious, without crime enjoy that woman. But if they shall have been fulfilled, know that thy nuptials were not pleasing in his sight. For it is written: 'Let no man approach to a near of kin to his own blood, to uncover her turpitude.' And again: 'The soul that shall have done any of these things shall perish from the midst of his people': and Solomon in his proverbs says: 'But he who is an adulterer, for want of heart, shall lose his soul. He gathers to himself turpitude and ignominy, and his reproach shall not be blotted out, because jealousy and fury will not spare in the day of vengeance.' And Paul the Apostle, writing to the Corinthians, says: 'Flee fornication: every sin whatsoever a man does is outside the body: but he who fornicates sins against his own body.' And likewise: 'Fornicators and adulterers God will judge.' For to thee, lord, if there were a lawful wife not sprung of thy blood, thou oughtest to consider that the same life-giving preacher still divinely teaches: 'They who have wives, let them be as if not having them.' But what blessed Gregory says in the canons of such persons, be not angry if we say it. 'If anyone shall take a niece in marriage, let him be anathema.'"

[18] and by threats, "Therefore, if thou wilt escape perpetual torment, and attain to the kingdom of heaven, led by true penance, and such a marriage being spurned, be converted to the Lord, that he may forgive thee thy offense: since vain is the glory of this world, and all flesh is grass." At these things also, when the bishops standing round agreed in many things, and, to destroy so hated a marriage, brought forward very many testimonies from the sacred Scriptures, blessed Frederick saw that the king did not consider these as he ought, opening again his mouth to speak, said: "Good emperor, according to the Apostle of the Lord, we ought to fear God and keep his commandments; but to honor thee, and consent to good acts, and resist and correct evil ones, the Lord being witness, who says: 'If thou shalt not have spoken, that the impious may keep himself from his way, and the impious himself shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require from thy hand.' Wherefore, lord, if we had not announced to thee thy sins and not reproved thee of thy impiety, thou wouldst not be converted and live: and us, who had not reproved thee, who, we being silent, wouldst sin, he would destroy with perennial flames. It is therefore our office that we heal by spiritual counsel him who is infirm through sins."

[19] Scarcely had the Prelate worthy of God uttered these things, when the emperor blushed, is deterred by him. and for a time, led by penance, wept, and, his eyes cast down to the earth, sighing said: "I have sinned, and erred from the true way; I render myself guilty, and, subject to your judgment, I will willingly amend the things committed." To whom on the contrary the Bishop said: "But if thou shalt do this from the heart, thou shalt be received by God, who, as thou saidst, is very merciful

to have mercy, and he will be to thee a father, and thou to him a son, if at least thy heart shall not have withdrawn back from him. Build not thy house upon the sand, lest, when the rain shall come and the river be about to flow, and the wind be about to blow, they beat upon it, and it fall, and great be its ruin; but lift it from the sand, and place it upon the rock: but we shall not cease to pray for thee, and to ask that thou mayest be filled with the knowledge of the will of God in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, and mayest walk worthily before him, pleasing in all things. But do thou try and prove thyself, whether thou art in the faith. He will surely render in the dread day of judgment to each according to his work."

ANNOTATIONS.

* read "whoever" (quisque)

CHAPTER IV.

His virtues in the episcopate, apostolic zeal, and constancy.

These discourses at last being finished, the king with the other bishops called the blessed Man to dinner, [St. Frederick, returned to Utrecht, and received by the citizens with the highest joy,] and then, having saluted him, sent him with the highest honor to Utrecht. And when they had come to the Rhine, the clergy who had remained, and the people and the mixed common folk from that region are gathered into one, and rush forthwith to meet him, and, giving to God innumerable thanks for the wished-for pastor, led him with befitting praises to the fortress, and he was enthroned in his holy temple of the blessed Virgin and Mother of God Mary, in which the martyr Boniface with his companions is contained buried ^a. For he himself, in his accustomed manner, visited by praying the altars of the several Saints, and, singing Mass that day, and making his sermon to the people, and giving it his blessing after the completed office, bade farewell, and permitted them to depart. But he remained in the same fortress no small time, teaching and making peace among the people, and whatever of the old error was cultivated in that district he extirpated and destroyed by the divine word.

[21] he exercises many good works, He did not exalt himself for the dignity of the prelacy, but, according to the divine saying, by how much he had been great, by so much he humbled himself in all things. In giving alms, as he had been before, generous, in the reception of pilgrims assiduously ready, the greatest liberator of captives and those in fetters, a visitor of the sick, a giver of garments to the naked, affable and lovable to all, given to vigils and prayers, saying to the Lord, after the example of the psalmist David, praise seven times in the day and in the night. He was always of one and the same mind, no hatreds and wraths dominated in him, but he bore peace and concord in his breast, and, far removed from that, was second to none in probity of morals and in goodness. Whatever also within the walls of the temple, and the dwellings of the brethren, and in the walls of the fortress had fallen, restoring it: to the more religious from the number of clerics and laymen he commended that district ^b to be guarded, lest any error should be born. Desiring to visit the very pontificate committed to him, he first disposed his journey to the aforesaid island for the sake of the zeal of evangelizing.

[22] and goes to the island of Walcheren, The brethren of the house being saluted in order, the Bishop boarded a ship, and with a favorable wind, as he wished, put in at Walcheren, and entering the island proceeded to the church; and meanwhile ordered his tent to be pitched in the green meadows. Whom when the inhabitants of that country saw to be present, many, who had a sound mind, flowed together to him from every side, and received him with befitting honor; but very many indeed, polluted with the aforesaid crimes, already prepared arms against him, as if for battle, saying that he should be slain, if he should do them any inconvenience. When this had come to the Prelate's hearing, he ordered a holy synod to be announced to all, and that whoever should not come should know himself to be excommunicated, and after the passing of life he threatened eternal punishment. But they, since they counted these as nothing, and remained in their perversity, only the elders came to the holy synod, and in all things, as was just, were obedient.

[23] where the incestuous inhabitants by prayer and labor, But the blessed Pontiff, when he saw their hardened hearts, and that he labored in vain in the acquiring of them, weeping, suppliantly asked all the elders who were present, that in destroying such hated marriages, as best they could, they would be helpers, and offer to the Lord the talent doubled. Which they, fulfilling, proceeded everywhere, admonishing the aforesaid, and asking that they should not so act, but should seek the pardon of the Bishop, to whom they had been commended for ruling, and render themselves guilty in all things, lest, if perchance they should neglect these things, the Lord should consume all that land with plagues, either in barbarians, or in other pestilences or in famine, because they despised him set over them as pastor: for he himself with the clerics remained in the holy church praying with unspeakable groanings, and beseeching the Lord that he would open their hearts, and give them a sense of doing penance, and constancy of remaining in good work, lest, after the amendment of their crimes, like dogs, they should return to the vomit.

[24] Then his prayer was surely heard: for on the following day, as he was discoursing with the clerics of the divine Scripture, he brings to penance. from the villages round about there is made to him a very great concourse of the people, seeking from the heart pardon, and promising to do a worthy penance for all. The Prelate, at such things immediately made wonderfully glad, entered the holy synod, and told them that none could do a worthy penance, unless first they should leave and execrate their marriages, and confirm by an oath that they would not resume them after this. When all had devoutly done this, and now received penance according to the offense, the Man of God remained there for some days, teaching them the things that are of God. But when he departed thence, he left there presbyters of great sanctity to guard the people; and, bidding farewell to all in order, he visited his parishes on his return, and, all things being well arranged, came to Utrecht, and stayed there for some time. Then, by preaching and building churches, going round the whole pontificate, to his Lord, no least of husbandmen, he replanted a beautiful vineyard, and gave to the household, over which he had been set, food in season, that when he should find him watching and so doing, and rendering double the single talent delivered to him, he might set him over his goods, and lead him into his joy.

[25] The emperor therefore, when he knew that all things prospered around blessed Frederick, in vain the queen tries to allure St. Frederick to her side, and that nothing of diabolical error sprouted in that country, feared to stay there longer with the forbidden woman, but, returning toward Gaul, saluted her and said: "This Pontiff, contrary to us for our cause, if thou canst bend him by any prayers, or blind him by money, do it; but if thou canst not, strive to extort it by threats." Which she, often trying at the command of her lord, sometimes by asking through letters, now by offering innumerable treasures, tried to bend the holy man, who hoped in the treasures of no money, to this, that, authority being delivered to him of coming together and remaining in marriage, he would grant them license. At these things, when he often struggled against it, and said that such things could not be done without the judgment of the supreme Pontiff and of the other prelates, the queen, when she learned it, burned into wrath, and, blinded by a wretched love, following the emperor, not otherwise than commanded, began to accuse for many causes the Pontiff dear to God, now holding in mind how she might in the future destroy him.

[26] For she remained, as is reported, after these things in such wickedness, who is accused of wantonness. that not only did it seem to her enough to have sinned with the emperor, but she even assailed a certain Bernard, the emperor's son in baptism, namely a youth fearing God, as once the Egyptian woman the patriarch Joseph, and often asked that he should lie with her. When he, inspired by the inspiration of God, denied this, and said that it was a very great sin to commit adultery, Judith, alas, not even worthy of such a name! grew hot, and, fearing that so wicked a suggestion of hers should be laid bare, full of all filth and deceit, began frequently, in the manner of the Egyptian woman, to accuse the still innocent youth to the emperor, that he wished to oppress her by force, and to commit an unlawful thing with her. Which matter, when the aforesaid Bernard learned, he wished to clear himself of the imputed crime, and to do full justice to the emperor, seated with his two sons Lothair and Louis in the palace of Theodo ^c; but there was no one who dared to attack him wishing to fight with arms. But when Lord Frederick had learned these things, he grieved much, and, in the manner of Samuel praying for Saul, interceded to God with unspeakable prayers for the emperor and his perfidious wife, that they might come to their senses.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER V.

Pastoral solicitude, the prediction of divine vengeance, and the penance of king Louis.

St. Odulf, admonished by an angel, But in that very storm a certain priest, named Odulf ^a, dwelt most holy in the village which is called Oreschot ^b, sprung of a noble father Bodgis, a preacher of the peoples, no less given to the sacred Scriptures, and in good acts to be postponed to none. When on a certain night he was resting wearied on his little bed, he saw in a vision an angel of God standing by him, gleaming with a bright light, and uttering with rosy mouth such words: "Rise, servant of Jesus Christ, rise; it behooves thee to go to the fortress whose name is Utrecht ^c, and with the other servants of God thou shalt remain there until thy departure, and for preaching to the people of blessed Frederick, whose that

pontificate is, it becomes thee to be a fosterer in whatever place he shall command."

[28] he comes to Utrecht to St. Frederick, Immediately the man of God, terrified by such a vision, rose in the night, and prepared what was necessary for him on the journey, until the twilight of day, mindful of the saying of the Lord: "Everyone who shall leave house, or brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or wife, or children, or fields, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall possess eternal life." All things therefore being left, he followed the Lord, and, as had been commanded him, came to Utrecht after three days. And when he had entered the holy city, the prelate Frederick rushed to meet him with the clergy, and, made glad by the coming of such a man, received him with joy and befitting honor, and, prayer being made in the holy temple, gave him, to dwell in, in the southern part of the fortress, a lodging comely enough, and also a garden. He therefore remained such in good works, that, like a lamp shining before the Lord, he shone to all those, and on this account by the Pontiff himself and all the brethren was called father of the monastery.

[29] At about the same time, the devil instigating and administering, by whom afterward he is sent into Frisia, the Frisian people erred in so many places concerning the acknowledgment of the holy and undivided Trinity, that you would think the sect of Sabellius and Arius disseminated and sprung up a second time. Which when it struck the ears of the Prelate, he grew hot, and quickly, weeping and wailing, crossed the river Alechmere, traversing districts and villages by teaching: but, oh wickedness! neither by himself, nor by his fellow-soldiers, could he correct the dire nation. Then the strong athlete of God, not knowing what to do, at last, counsel being taken, sent a legate to Utrecht, that he should ask St. Odulf to come to him into Frisia as quickly as he could, if perchance God would give some salvation to that people through him. But when the legate came to the city, and related his legation, the man of God, immediately led by desire of martyrdom, as if invited to a banquet, rose glad, and, the aforesaid river being crossed, where the Pontiff stayed, came to Staveren.

[30] Which being seen, the Bishop was filled with great joy, that he may instruct the Frisians thinking ill of the Holy Trinity. and, a kiss being given mutually, both armed with the life-giving sword of the divine word, went round that whole region by preaching, and, feeding the people bearing a beast-like heart with the life-giving food of the Lord, brought them back, softened like a lamb, to the Catholic faith. For blessed the Prelate immediately wrote a paper of this kind, composed concerning the holy Trinity, which he sent to the parishes and priests pertaining to him, that if a schism should further arise among the people, it might frequently be read in public: "The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal; for the distinction is in the persons, the unity is recognized in the nature. The Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, the Holy Spirit also is almighty. A threefold name indeed, but one virtue and power. The Son incomprehensibly begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit ineffably proceeding from the Father and the Son, a power not accidental, but perpetual and undivided, remaining, a height sociably, a kingdom without end, an everlasting glory, which alone creates, alone forgives sins, and grants the kingdoms of heaven." Moreover, for appeasing the holy Trinity, he ordered a prayer composed concerning the holy Trinity to be recited for the salvation of the people every day three times, namely morning, noon, and evening. But to St. Odulf, with the counsel of the clergy and of the faithful laity of that country, though unwilling, he commended the church of Staveren to be ruled, and, all things being well arranged, he returned to Utrecht.

[31] Meanwhile the Lord, wishing to fulfill the prophetic saying of the glorious prelate Frederick, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation eight hundred and thirty-five put into the heart of Murman ^f king of the Britons, By the rebellion of the Britons, that he should invade the kingdom of the Franks, and raise arms against the emperor, because on account of a woman he had erred from the true way, and had neglected his precepts and law. Then the aforesaid tyrant, the forces of strong soldiers being collected like the sand of the sea, entered the kingdom of the Franks where it lay open, and, taking and warring down cities and villages, laid it waste, and by the edge of the sword slew an innumerable kind of men, and, enriched with many spoils, returned unharmed to his own country. Whom the emperor, nearly all France being gathered into one, pursuing, entered into war with him, but by no means prevailed, and lost very many of his nobles in the battle; which, when they had often waged on each side, the emperor Louis, as if conquered, yielded to the other, and, giving unspeakable gifts, sought peace, and, having been calumniated, makes him his friend. But the people knew for what cause God permitted his holy church to be afflicted, and there was much murmur in it concerning the unlawful marriage of the emperor.

[32] the adultery of the queen and other adverse things, But when the circle of that year had passed, the queen, for the sake of making peace, called to herself the aforesaid Bernard, though unwilling, and, blinded by venereal love, as if moved by mercy over him, acquired for him the king's favor, and often kept him with her. For which cause various and vain talk was very often between them, and, as is wont to happen, evil conversations corrupt good morals, and, from the assiduity of the execrable conversations, the diabolical cunning perpetrating, as is reported, she slept with the queen, and lay with her. Then, this infamy being laid bare and divulged, Pippin ^g, the emperor's son by the empress Irmingard ^h, greatly saddened by such a cause, with Jesse bishop of Amiens, and Hilduin namely his archchaplain, and Matfrid, and Elyazar the abbot, and Godfrey, and very many others of the nobles of the kingdom ⁱ, went to his father, and objected to him the consanguinity of his wife, and many other things, and accused the queen of the aforesaid adultery. To whom when the emperor would give no answer to this, but, shaking his head, looked at them with grim eyes, they seized the queen by force, and veiled her, and, putting her into one temple, returned to their own places.

[33] foretold by St. Frederick, A few months indeed being passed after these things, the emperor, his wife being recovered, went to the fortress of Nijmegen ^k, and, having captured, with many, the pontiff Jesse, who in the simplicity of his heart had imposed a veil on the queen for the amendment of her life, ordered him to be deposed from the dignity of the pontificate (which displeased all who feared God), compelling the bishops to this, and consigned others to custody, and condemned them to exile. This matter being learned, blessed Pope Gregory ^l, wonderfully made sad, and going out from the city of Rome, the ridges of the Alps being crossed, came to the emperor, and strongly rebuked him for the evil which he had done, and asked him to come to his senses with his wife, and imposed a fast and a cause of penance on them, prostrate and seeking pardon. But to the bishops, both present and absent, he ordered by Apostolic authority that, when he departed, they should admonish him and his profane wife, and feed them with spiritual words, and if they should neglect the penance enjoined on them, and be unwilling to fulfill it, they should hold them as heathens and publicans, and condemn them with perpetual anathema.

[34] Then the emperor, again prostrate, rendered himself guilty, by the command of Pope Gregory the king does penance; promises to be obedient in all things: and, asking that he would pray to God for him and the state of his kingdom, enriched him with many royal gifts. But soon the apostolic Man, not blinded by these gifts, but prudent as a serpent, simple as a dove, correcting the emperor of the aforesaid transgressions, conferred on him and his magnates very many pledges of the Saints, which he brought with him for salvation, and, giving most salutary admonitions concerning eternal life, when he had been saluted, went with his own to the city of Rome.

[35] And without delay (which is a wickedness to say) the emperor again returned to his vomit, but soon returns to his former manner of living. and did afterward before the Lord a worse sin than he had done. Yet through Germany and Gaul the bishops, mindful of the Lord Pope's precept, by themselves and by letters asked him not to do this, and exhorted him to recognize whom he ought to follow: therefore openly, as far as he dared, he held them in hatred, and especially holy Frederick, since he, filled with the divine breath, laid bare to him his depravity and iniquity, and kept silent nothing that was just: and, that he might amend himself of the things committed, always asked more than the rest, not for any envy, but for the fear of God, lest he should perish. And he said such things: "It is not lawful for a woman to dismiss the holy veil after she has received it, the most holy Pope Zachary testifying in this epistle, directed to the Franks and Gauls. In whatever manner a woman, her husband canonically permitting, or he being dead, has received the holy veil on her head, whether of her own accord or unwilling ^m, let her altogether remain in it, and not dismiss it."

ANNOTATIONS.

* read "eight hundred" (octingentesimo)

* perhaps "with" (cum)

CHAPTER VI.

The repeated reprehension of the king on account of the incestuous nuptials, and the martyrdom of Frederick.

Louis the Pious is snatched from custody, But in the year of the Lord's Incarnation eight hundred and thirty-eight, and the twenty-first of the emperor's reign, his sons coming together into one, a counsel was made among them and the bishops, and dukes, and nobles, that on account of the ignominious marriage, and because he had transgressed the precept of the supreme Pontiff, they should forsake him, and lead him to a secret place, where he should be kept so long, until he should worthily accomplish the penance enjoined on him, and appease the eternal God with his vows. Which done, the queen, already veiled by the pontiff Jesse, they sent to the city of Cartuna ^a, and threatened her with death if she should return thence, or flee. After not much time, therefore, Louis the younger of the brothers, moved with paternal bowels, the Franks whom he could being gathered, snatched his father, the penance being scarcely begun, from custody, and honorably placed him at Aachen ^b in his own seat and hall.

[37] Immediately the emperor ordered Ebbo the archpontiff of Reims, and recovers his abducted wife, as he can recognize who wishes to read through his books, a man truly fearing God, to be seized, and again compelling the bishops to this, to depose him without cause. These things being accomplished according to his wish, that they might bring back his wife, he sent legates toward Italy: whom, they bringing her back, he received with the greatest honor and joy. For fear of the pontiffs, France being left, he came a second time into one city near the Rhine, thereafter daily at their banquets, harps and lyres, drums and flutes resounding.

[38] Then the glorious pontiff Frederick, perceiving that his heart was hardened, and being therefore reprehended by St. Frederick, so that he would excommunicate him, unless he were converted, announced it by an epistle, in which, setting down also the sayings of many fathers, he thus says: "Why, if thou assertest thyself a servant of Christ, hast thou judged his servants, that is the bishops, Anselm of Milan, Wolfold of Cremona, Theodolf of Orléans, Jesse of Amiens, Ebbo of Reims, without any cause? Did he command thee to do these things, who through his prophets says: 'He who touches you, touches the apple of my eye'? And again: 'Will you render me a recompense? And if you avenge yourselves against me, know that I will swiftly render a requital upon your head.' You have heard the Apostle saying: 'Who art thou that judgest another's servant? To his own lord he falls or stands.' For thou wilt not have thy servant judged by another than by thee; and if anyone even does it, thou art either angry with too great indignation, or seekest vengeance upon him. And what thou wilt not have done to thee, why hast thou brought upon the Lord of lords? Thou hast done most wickedly, because by thy God, not by men, the highest priests are to be judged, not to be rent by men of depraved life, but rather to be borne. Besides, the harp and lyre and drum and flute are daily in your banquets, and you regard not the work of God, nor consider the work of his hands: therefore the Lord will make upon you the vengeance of his servants, and hell will enlarge its soul, and its mouth, unless you correct yourselves, will be opened, and you will descend to it, and your lofty eyes shall then be brought low, because you have put the bitter for the sweet, and the sweet for the bitter."

[39] By such admonitions therefore the emperor, more angered against the Man of God, The Bishop's slaying he commits to the queen, considers how he may deliver him to death, and, the queen always persuading these things, commits it to her to accomplish such a wickedness. But at that very time the emperor Louis went to profane France, that she might hasten in the killing of the Man of God, near the Rhine, where he had settled, he left the queen: and commanded that, when it was done, she should not delay to go after him. Then she, preparing very many snares for the blessed Priest, when she could bend him from his purpose neither by asking, nor by promising innumerable treasures, on a certain occasion, while he was staying at Utrecht, a few soldiers being kept with him, in his accustomed manner with the brethren, and, foreknowing, awaited there the day of his departure, before the dog-days, her own and the emperor's faithful being convoked to her from every side, addresses them with such words: "How great and how many, beyond the other pontiffs, are the troubles that Frederick, the Frisian prelate, is to me and to my lord, is, as I think, known to your idleness. Wherefore you, to whom it is lawful to undertake our commands, I beg with all my heart, that you take vengeance for me on him, and ingeniously, not publicly, whence great peril can come to you, kill him, and whatever of our goods, or of the kingdom, you shall desire for a reward, we shall be ready to give."

[40] While such a speech displeased all who feared God, who sends two assassins to kill him. two proud and greedy young men, rising, promised that they would do all these things according to her will, if she would render them a reward in the future. This being promised, and, that no one should make it known to the bishop, confirmed by an oath, taking with them knives in their sleeves, on that day on which the sun is turned into Leo ^c, they came to the city of Utrecht, and, on behalf of the queen, related in a friendly manner that they wished to have a conversation with the Pontiff. When this had been announced to him by his own, as he was preparing himself for the solemnities of the Masses, groaning, he raised his head and palms to heaven, and, rendering to God very many thanksgivings for the wished-for time, looked with angelic face on those standing round and says: "What these want, I know, but I command that they wait until the Mass be accomplished."

[41] St. Frederick, foreknowing his death, Then in the pontifical manner, rising from his chair, he celebrated the Mass, as he knew beautifully and best with the fear of God, and after the evangelical reading made his sermon to the people, and, that they should not be saddened (since they loved him as a father), foretold his death by an allegory, and that on the same day he was to receive from God perpetual food with the Saints in the kingdom of heaven: and, giving the body and blood of the Lord, bade farewell to all. And the faithful pastor, weeping, presented and commended to the good pastor our Lord Jesus Christ the sheep which he had committed to him. For the clergy and people all wept for grief, and knew not what the Bishop signified in such things.

[42] But the sacred service of God being duly celebrated, clothed as he was, he entered the sacristy of St. John the Evangelist, receives them intrepidly after celebrating Mass, in which also his sarcophagus had stood, and, all being excluded except one his chaplain, he implored with tears and sighs the protections of all the Saints from without, and caused those sent to him to be brought into the sacristy. When they had been brought in, he ordered the cleric to walk behind the altar of St. Salvator, enjoining that he should not return until he called him. When he had gone out, he saw the sons of Belial hesitating, and said to them: "Fulfill your legation, as it has been commanded you, and be not terrified; before you came hither, I knew." When they heard this, seeing that he of his own accord hastened to death, two long knives being drawn from their sleeves, they struck him in the entrails, and, mocking, said alternately: "Our queen has avenged herself of thee."

[43] Yet the Martyr of God, with what strength he could, that the blood and inner parts might not go out, and, mortally wounded, persuades them to flee; restrained his wounds, and ordered those homicides to depart in haste, lest they should be caught. They quickly departing, when a little was passed, he called to himself his cleric, and ordered that, to see whether the messengers had yet crossed the Rhine, he should ascend upon the walls, and with what haste they went, report to him. He, fulfilling these things as he had been commanded, returned, saying that they had now crossed the Rhine, and were as it were hastening their flight; and looked diligently at the changed face of his lord, and, as if breathless, asked what was, or had happened, to him. Whom the Saint asked not to be saddened, and said: "I am struck, my son. Call my brethren and fellow-soldiers, call the people of God, and let it render me, earthly, to the earth whence I came forth; and let it pray that my spirit, though it be not worthy, may be directed to the Lord, for whose law and love my blood is poured out on the earth today." When he heard this, tearing out his hair, he wept: "Woe, woe, and alas," he began to cry. And when he had narrated these things to all, what wailing and weeping and lamentation arose there, good Jesus, who could relate, but he who is said to have been present!

[44] At last, St. Odulf, the cooperator of the holy Bishop himself, and, his flock being convoked, he piously dies. with the clergy and people, and all the rest, being gathered into one, and all these crying out: "Why, father, dost thou leave us orphans?" the glorious martyr, weeping, foretelling said: "My dearest brethren and sons, if I have any part with the Saints in heaven, I will not leave you desolate, but I will ever be an intercessor of your salvation and safety. Yet know that, on account of the wickedness of the emperor and his wife and their nobles, the whole kingdom will be laid waste to nothing by the incursion of the Danes, and, alas, for our crime this city and this pontificate will experience and expiate it, since it has always remained with us." Which scarcely said, he made his blessing over the people, and, living, entered the sarcophagus, and himself first began the psalmodies which are wont to be sung at the obsequies of the dead, and said: "I will please the Lord in the land of the living." Then, very often repeating this verse: "Into thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit," gazing supine at heaven, he said: "This is my rest unto the age of the age, here will I dwell, since I have chosen it." Then, his holy breath being sent forth, the clerics still burying his body, so great a wonderful fragrance of odor filled the whole church, that all the present crowd clearly perceived that an angelic host was present, which led the soul of the blessed Martyr with triumph to the starry kingdoms, where, by his merits, may he lead us. Who lives and reigns unto all the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER VII.

The Norman devastation of Frisia foretold by St. Frederick, the death of king Louis; the punishment of the sacristan who had profaned the tomb of St. Frederick.

In the same year, therefore ^a, the prophetic saying of the blessed Prelate began to be fulfilled: for the Normans, that is the men of the North, gathered into one like the sand of the sea, The Normans, according to St. Frederick's prophecy, lay waste Frisia. crossed the sea and put in at the villa named Dorestad ^b, once great, which is now called Wyck, in which also, as they report, fifty-five churches had been built in honor of God and his Saints, and, laying it waste and burning it, reduced it to nothing, and led the people captive with many spoils. Then, sailing through the whole land, and afflicting and pressing down the holy church, they returned to their own; but after not many years they returned, and, taking the city of Utrecht by arms, spared no one, nor left there anyone pissing against a wall. Whence it happened that after the death of Lord Alfric ^c, brother of the most holy martyr Frederick, and of Lutger ^d the bishops, the people being put to flight from the country, the district and the city stood destroyed, desolate, and deserted, until the divine clemency set over those places the pious Baldric ^e as pontiff, under whose times walls not like the ancient, yet good, arose.

[46] The king and queen deny that this slaying was done by their counsel, But the pontiffs through Germany and Gaul, the innocent slaying of holy Frederick being learned, unanimously rose up against the queen and the emperor, saying that they ought to be expelled from the kingdom and anathematized, and the kingdom given to others, better, who knew how to rule, not to slay, the people of God, and to walk in his commandments and ceremonies. About which matter the emperor was greatly disturbed, and, fearing lest they should forsake him and expel him from the kingdom, and turn to his sons and elect them, he himself and the queen swore in the sight of all that they would be blameless of the killing of the Pontiff, and were not guilty in counsel or will, and that those who did this homicide could be found in no place. This done, the bishops who had come together, each returned to his own place, and, soldiers being sent through the far spaces of the lands, ordered these men to be seized. But they, when they heard that they were sons of death, having received from the queen money as a reward, went as fugitives from the kingdom to a kingdom, until a sudden death met them, and led them bound to hell.

[47] and the king dies near the Rhine. The perjured emperor, therefore, and homicide, while he pursues his son Louis across the Rhine for the sake of killing him, was suddenly weighed down by disease, and, placed in a ship, near Ingelheim ^f dies in an island. Then, carried to the basilica of St. Arnulphus, he is buried: and it was shown to all peoples, though he was called Pious, of what kind he had been in his acts. But what happened to the queen, or what death she had, since it is not found written, is unknown ^g. Yet, on account of such a compact, she did not escape from the dire nether world. Holy the martyr Frederick indeed shone with many powers, as he does even hitherto, and is a medicine and physician to all who invoke him.

[48] St. Frederick to the sacristan profaning his tomb But there are still very many witnesses of each sex surviving, who relate that in the times of the pious prelate Baldric ^h a certain profane man managed the goods and all the treasure of the old temple after the sacristan, who to a beholding man rendered himself as it were a gentle lamb. But the ravening wolf himself, perpetrating the deed in secret, his lord not knowing, snatched the gifts which were offered at the altars, and cut off the candles placed in the venerable monastery to drive away the darknesses in the night-time, and lustfully consumed them. He indeed, when he very often entered the holy temple in the midst of the night-vigil, and did, more than can be told, a sacrilege, took the divine vesture in which Mass is daily celebrated, and in the sacristy of St. John the Evangelist, in which also the aforesaid Martyr rests, because there stood his little bed, placed it under himself, and so defiled the tombs of the Saints by pissing and by purging his belly, that whoever wished to approach for the sake of praying shuddered to draw near.

[49] Meanwhile, through the dim silences of a certain night, the sacred pontiff Frederick stood by him sleeping, appears, and once whose bright face and red vesture shone in the building, like the sun in heaven, and there followed him Lords Alfric and Ludger, who after him held the pontificate, and were finally buried in that sacristy, they too of great splendor, and bore in their hands pastoral staves. Then, the holy Martyr of God raising his staff, struck the drunken man on the breast, and, rousing him from sleep, said: "Why, brother, dost thou lie here supine? Why hast thou dared to spread the divine vestments under thee, and to defile our tombs? Cast forth thy bed, purge the place, restore to the Saints the good church-property which thou hast snatched, penitent diminish thy offense, seek again God from whom thou hast withdrawn. If thou neglect these things, thou shalt lack the present life with torment, and undergo eternal punishment, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth."

[50] When he drank in these things, terrified by the light and brightness, again admonishes him to come to his senses; he feared as long as he saw them; but after their departure, he cast off fear, and imputed this to a phantasm. But rising in the morning, to the sacristan asking if he had seen any vision that night, he said that he saw three angels, and that they spoke with him, and forbade him to sleep longer in the temple; but whether it were true, or a phantasm by which man is often deluded, he confessed that he knew not. But of the other matters, of which he was also admonished, that is of the divine vestment which he put under himself, and the sacrilege, and the pollution of the sacred tombs, he was silent; because, if he should confess, he feared he would pay for it. Then his lord ordered him to inquire their names, if he should see them a second time through a vision and they should speak with him.

[51] But he, not rendering thanks to God for such a vision, but he, spurning this admonition, remained in his undertaking, and, inebriating himself with drink, in the stillness of midnight alone again sought his little bed, and soon, while he had not yet closed his eyes, and was dozing, but still nearly awake, there stood by him a second time three sacred priests of the same habit as they were before, and, as if angry, the Martyr of God, striking him with his staff, roused him from sleep and said: "Wherefore hast thou transgressed our heavenly precept and the admonition which thou sawest and reportedst to thy lord; but what was commanded thee thou hast kept silent, and wouldst not fulfill? Now take counsel, confess thy offense, by tears and good works seek again thy baptism, which, guilty, thou hast lost through sacrilege. For if thou dismiss it, and be unwilling to confess thy deed, thou shalt die the death; but tell our names to thy lord, as he asked, Frederick, and his brother Alfric, and Ludger the upright pastor."

[52] These things said, they departed, and appeared no more. and continuing to profane the sacred place But the fear and horror of so great a vision did not rush upon that man; but his heart was hardened, because the devil remained in him, and, counting it as nothing, he began to sleep, buried in his drunkenness: and when it became day, he reported the vision and the names of the Saints to the sacristan, and about the sacrilege again kept silence, and would not confess. Then the sacristan, wondering with himself, said to him: "Beware lest thou hast perpetrated anything against the Saints of God, whence perpetual destruction may come to thee: for if thou wert such in mind as thou seemest in face, they would not, as I think, threatening thee, have ordered thee to cast forth thy bed. Whether also thou tellest the truth, I know not. But lest anyone say that thou perishest on account of my precept, do as is commanded thee, and have thy cot sleeping before the doors of the temple, until I know what has been resolved with the pontiff concerning this matter." Which soon he, about to perish, transgressing, drank more than usual from the cup, and at cockcrow came to sleep in the sacristy.

[53] What was done concerning him that night is not known: but in the twilight of day, is found punished in a horrible manner. while no one rang the bells for the matin praises, the brethren raised the small door from its hinge, and, entering, when they wished to rouse him, found him burning, and his bed already consumed by a sulphurous fire, and the sacristy defiled with his urine and dung. Which when they perceived, they knew him to be burned on account of this crime, and, convoking the whole district to see such a deed, they carried him outside the fortress to be buried. And while he was carried, from his body a fire went out as it were a lightning through the air, and it was demonstrated to the peoples what and how great a sin he had done against holy Frederick and his successors. After that day therefore no one slept in that sacristy or in the venerable temple up to the present, but, a cot being placed before the doors, the guardian rested, and fortified the inner places with bolts.

[54] Epilogue of the author. O how happy is the man who has this Saint in his soul! Blessed is he who seeks for himself such an intercessor with God! O how secure of living forever is he who cleaves to this sweetness; with how great felicity the sailor gains the port who has provided himself this pilot! O how wise a traveler do I call him who had him for his guide! O how prudent to do all good things is he who wishes to follow his footsteps, who has honored him with his goods on earth, he shall receive a hundredfold with the Saints of God in heaven. O city of Utrecht, thou happier and holier than many, rejoice always in thy patrons with Jesus Christ our Lord! An innumerable part of the heavenly army fights against thy enemy, in whose college the precious martyr Frederick, girt about with the divine sword, night and day manfully ceases not to defend thee, our Lord Jesus Christ granting, to whom is honor and empire remaining without end unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.