Christina the Marvelous

ON ST. CHRISTINA THE MARVELOUS, VIRGIN,

AT SAINT-TROND IN BELGIUM.

ABOUT THE YEAR 1224.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Christina, virgin, surnamed the Marvelous, at Saint-Trond in Belgium (St.)

BY THE AUTHOR J. P.

§ I. The credibility of the Acts, and their writer.

Concerning Saint-Trond, or the "shrine of St. Trudo" (commonly Sint-Truiden), situated in that part of Brabant which is called Hasbania (not Albania, as Gononus says in his notes to the Life of our Saint, after Felicius; on the 23rd of June)—concerning Saint-Trond, I say, The prodigies which the divine omnipotence we have already given sufficient notice on the 20th of February, on occasion of St. Eucherius bishop of Orleans. This place and its near neighborhood St. Christina wonderfully illustrated; inasmuch as she drew her birth in that tract, spent her life, and, this being left, passed to a better. Furthermore, she is called "the Marvelous" by antonomasia: because she wrought things unheard-of, unusual to other Saints, and scarcely credible to men, not to say paradoxical to posterity, and marvelous almost beyond all belief—the divine omnipotence being seen, in this Saint certainly, if ever in any others, in a manner prodigiously to sport. So much ought those things which are narrated in her Life deservedly to strike any reader. And for this cause they must be especially established by us, that as much as the extreme novelty of the deeds seems at first sight to detract from them, so much we may procure them credit from elsewhere, that those things may become historically most true which appear incredible and fabulous.

[2] For, to use the words of the author of the Life in number 49, Truly wonderful is God in His Saints, wrought in this Saint, in appearance incredible and fabulous, and in that woman (Christina), so to say, marvelous beyond all admiration. And rightly our Rader, to be cited below, said: "If any history of the Saints is to be placed among the paradoxes, this certainly, with the deeds of Simeon Salus and of Jacopone, is most paradoxical (παραδοξοτάτη)." Concerning Simeon Salus we treated on the 1st of this month; but concerning Jacopone, who was of the Order of Friars Minor, the same Rader treats in the second part of the Garden of the Saints, giving his Life from page 95 from the Italian Annals of the Franciscans; and most recently Benignus Fremaut in his Flemish Legend on the 25th of December; when it will be possible to consider whether, and what kind of, cultus he has. Meanwhile the examples of these avail so much, that we may not presently rashly judge concerning the marvels of our Saint, however paradoxical. Which the example of yet another virgin, likewise, will still more strongly persuade—one properly and closely pertaining hither, as a parallel of ours.

[3] in which another of the same name was like her, There lived, nearly a whole century after our Saint, another of the same name, deserving, equally as she, the name of "the Marvelous," but called by others, for distinction, "of Cologne" or "of Stommeln"; who ought not to yield to ours in marvels, if she does not surpass her; seen, from her unusual, unheard-of prodigies exceeding human comprehension, to be composed of as great things as she was.

human comprehension. We gave her Acts on the 22nd of June. From the several things which are there produced in the preliminary Commentary, there can be confirmed, or at least mitigated, those things which in this elder one strike human comprehension: but for the sake of brevity I do not transcribe those things here; especially since from elsewhere more things are at hand which pertain more properly hither, and more solidly settle our matter.

[4] they are solidly established from Jacques de Vitry, The author of this Life, not unaware how, in appearance, marvelous and paradoxical were the things which he undertook to set forth, and fearing lest they be received with that credence which was fitting, does this diligently in his prologue, that he may remove the prejudices which might be formed against them, excellently establishing against the incredulous whatever things seem to be narrated in it beyond belief. He begins from the testimony of the most Eminent Jacques de Vitry, who both lived with the Saint, and saw her. This witness is beyond all exception, whether you consider his prudence and learning, or the integrity of his life, which our Bartholomew Fisen has in the Flowers of the Church of Liège on the 30th of April; and concerning which author likewise we treated in the preliminary Commentary to the Life of Blessed Marie of Oignies, which he composed, given on the 23rd of June: where in the prologue of that Life he testifies concerning St. Christina those things which our biographer borrowed thence:

[5] a most weighty author, "I saw," he says, "also another (Christina), concerning whom the Lord operated so marvelously, that, when she had lain dead for a long time, before her body was buried in the earth, her soul returning to the body she came to life again, and obtained from the Lord that, living in the body in this world, she might sustain purgatory." See the rest there. That author, grave and prudent, and thus by no means credulous of slighter little tales, and most far removed from adopting fables offhand, would have exposed himself to laughter and mockery, if for true deeds—which he could and ought to know—he had sold us old wives' dirges; especially because he directs that prologue to Fulk bishop of Toulouse, a fugitive from Gaul to the tract of Liège, which had been the theater of St. Christina's marvels so recently that their vivid odors were still even then breathing everywhere. Let him be heard, himself speaking thus:

[6] "Whence, when the holy and venerable father, bishop of the church of Toulouse, and by no means suspect in the things which he narrates; driven from his city by the heretics, had at length come down as far as the bishopric of Liège, as though touched by the odor and fame of certain persons soldiering for God in true humility, he did not cease to marvel at the faith especially of the holy women… and greatly desired that certain things which he saw and heard, lest they should perish, should be gathered as it were fragments. For you know, holy father, pastor of Toulouse, … (for to you is my discourse, at whose command, and reproving me of negligence, I have dared to attempt the present little work;) you know, I say, that when you came to our parts," etc. Supported, therefore, by this testimony of so prudent an author, directed to a most weighty prelate, our biographer likewise set his mind to writing the marvels of the Saint, as he himself attests in the praised prologue in these words: "Nor would I in any way have presumed to write them, unless the testimony of the venerable bishop Jacques in the greater events of the deeds had preceded me."

[7] And to follow our biographer; the certain and affirmed expressions with which he speaks in the same prologue cannot but procure the highest credit to his own words: likewise from the author of the Life, "I," he says, "for the edification of the readers, and especially for the praise of Christ, have described these things, though in unskilled speech; certain, at any rate, by the relation of the narrators. Nor would I undeservedly have called myself certain, since I have plainly as many witnesses in the several things which I have described, as at that time in the town of St. Trudo could use reason: for these things were not done in a corner, but plainly among the peoples." What? that he wrote the marvels of the Saint at that time when even then the first, recent, and present memory was hovering before the eyes of those men who had seen her: for, as he again attests, "nor did so much time pass as absorbed and buried them in oblivion, since it is not more than eight years that I have written these things after her death."

[8] Denys the Carthusian, most illustrious in life and writings, and a fellow-countryman of the Saint, and by Denys the Carthusian, who began to live toward the end of the fourteenth century, and ceased in the year 1471 (see our Acts on the 12th of March, where from page 245 we gave him with the title of venerable), in the compendium of the Life which he inserted in his book On the Four Last Things, article 50, hands down these things: "I remember also that while in my boyhood I frequented the school in that town (of St. Trudo), I frequently heard mention of that admirable Christina, and (as was said) some then lived in St. Trudo who knew several who saw that glorious woman in the flesh." But in the Colloquy on the particular judgment of souls after death, article 10, he relates from her Life what happened to her soul stripped of the body. And in article 33, to the marvelous and paradoxical deeds of St. Christina contracted by Denys into an epitome, the interlocutor brother subjoins: "Do you also (Denys), who flourish in the acumen of natural reason, and are learned in the philosophical sciences, believe these things to be true?"

[9] excellently confirming these marvels. To whom Denys: "Badly and too badly does he flourish in natural acumen and acquired science, who from this presumes to measure, judge, and constrain by his own ingenuity those things which are of faith, or are found by a faith-worthy narration. Finally, the things which the aforesaid author (understand the Cantimpratan) writes concerning her in the legend of Christina the Marvelous, he proves by the testimony of Jacques bishop of Acre, afterward Cardinal, who testifies that he saw her and her marvels, nay, they narrate also many other things concerning her more marvelous than those touched upon. I too was frequently in the place where she was buried; and while in my boyhood I frequented the school in the town of St. Trudo, they often spoke of her from the account of their parents." And thus those things which were done openly and publicly are most solidly confirmed. "But other things," to proceed with the biographer, "which no one could know except herself, I heard properly from those who testified that they had received them from her mouth. And let whoever reads these things know that I have believed such witnesses as would in no way deviate from the center of truth even for the amputating of their heads."

[10] The same things are again confirmed from the author of the Life: The things which our biographer narrates in the Life, numbers 47, 48, and 49, he confesses that he learned from Thomas, abbot of Saint-Trond, an eyewitness. In number 38 the Saint is introduced as making a stay of nine years with a certain recluse of most religious life, Iveta by name; where the Lord wrought marvels through her; and the same biographer attests that he received from that recluse many things which he wrote concerning Christina, revealed to him: nor that rashly or by chance; for he soon adds: "For from the far-off parts of the Gauls I came to her on account of this." But now, the things which in number 54 he has concerning the translation of the body, accomplished seven years after her first burial; these must have happened at nearly the very time when he girded himself to write. To these, if we attend to certain minute adjuncts of places, times, and persons, which are read throughout the Life, I am indeed deceived, if they cannot deservedly be reckoned as so many genuine marks by which both the credibility of the writing, and the sincerity of the writer, and the truth of the things narrated are commended. Certainly our Papebroch, after seeing, discussing, and illustrating the Acts of so many Saints—otherwise not more than fairly easy in approving them, as is most well known to the learned—greatly commended the Life of St. Christina for its sincerity, truth, and the historically proved credibility of the things narrated in it. And I seem to myself sufficiently to have shown both that the Saint's Acts are marvelous almost beyond belief, and that, being accommodated to paradoxes, they are not destitute of authority. It is next, that I should show that no slight weight of authority accrues to those same Acts from the person of the author who consigned them to letters.

[11] concerning whom some things are disputed, He was Thomas de Cantimpré or Cantipratensis, so called from the monastery of Canons Regular, which once stood near Cambrai, but was long ago demolished by the fury of war, to which he had given his name, thence translated to the Order of Preachers: in whose Library, most recently published, tome 1, page 250, it is written that he is distinguished by some with the title of Blessed; where also the things done by him are woven together in chronological order; and afterward the Life of St. Christina the Marvelous is reckoned among his writings. Furthermore, we gave the man a place among the Omitted on the 15th of May; concerning him also we said more on the 16th of June, page 231, on occasion of St. Lutgard, whose Life he also composed. Denys the Carthusian, in the cited article 33, calls him a suffragan bishop; Bellarmine adds "of the archbishop of Cambrai": to which title subscribe Molanus in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium on this 24th day, Ferréol Locrius in the Belgic Chronicle, page 362, Vossius On the Latin Historians, book 2, page 487, Valerius Andreas in the Belgic Library, who attributes 30 years to him in this office; Miraeus in the Belgic Fasti, page 260; the Sainte-Marthes, by whom he is noted, under Nicholas III archbishop of Cambrai, as coadjutor and bishop … and doctor of theology (not correctly); Fisen in the Flowers, page 248; and finally the recent Gallic Legend-writer in the Critical Table of the Acts and authors of the month of June, and our Coret, to be cited afterward; but more correctly abstain from that title Henry of Ghent, Trithemius On the Ecclesiastical Writers, and our Possevino in the Sacred Apparatus: for that he never bore the office of bishop; nor was a suffragan of the archbishop of Cambrai or of others (and thus was neither bishop of Lusentum, much less patriarch of Jerusalem, as by some he is said to be in the praised Possevino) is rightly proved in the praised Library.

[12] Whence there deserve to be corrected the things which were said in the preliminary Commentary to the Life of St. Lutgard on the 16th of June, number 2; things to be corrected in others; as also when he wrote, especially where Denys the Carthusian is corrected, as though he had made the Cantipratan a religious of the Order of St. Benedict; whereas in article 50 On the Four Last Things there cited, the praised author most expressly says that he was of the Order of Friars Preachers. Moreover, that he neither obtained the laurel of mastership, against the Sainte-Marthes, nor discharged the office of Prior among his own at Louvain, as in the cited place with us it is asserted, I draw from the cited Library; which both mentions only the office of subprior among the Louvainers, and denies him the said laurel; although in the same place it affirms that he was a lector. But since he wrote that Life in the eighth year from the Saint's death, namely about the year 1232; she having been called to the heavenly ones about the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1224,

as is noted in the Life, number 54, it follows that this province of writing was undertaken by him during the first times in which he embraced this institute of life; after he had put on its habit at Louvain in the aforementioned year 1232.

[13] But truly he had by then already passed to the praised Order, it is indicated. when he was committing the oft-mentioned Life to letters; as he himself most expressly indicates, both in the prologue, number 2, by these words: "I … the unworthy Brother of the Order of Preachers"; and in the Life of St. Lutgard on the said day, page 242, where these things are had: "But also a certain most blessed virgin, Christina by name, whom the venerable Jacques mentions in the Life of Blessed Marie of Oignies, whose Life also we ourselves have described." Yet those things which, as we saw above, he received from Iveta the recluse, to whom "from the far-off parts of the Gauls he came on account of this," he must have received before he was enrolled in the Order of Preachers, according to the things which are handed down in the cited Library, in which he is narrated to have been sent, soon after his profession, to Cologne, and there under Albertus Magnus to have heard theology for at least four years.

§ II. The various copies of the Life; which one is given by us here; a fuller notice of a certain person mentioned in it.

Various fragments are set forth, The compendium of the Life the venerable Denys the Carthusian inserted in his book On the Four Last Things, article 50, and in the Dialogue on the particular judgment of souls after death, article 33. Surius published it in print, tome 3, from page 778 of the edition of the year 1572, from a single and unique copy, in which indeed, he says, "I fear that some things are lacking"; but scarcely any indeed are lacking, if you compare it with other copies; but if with ours, which we here publish, there are lacking the things which are there narrated from number 57. But most badly, both of this and of others, after his manner, has he deserved; for "we have changed," he says, "nearly the whole style, and have rendered certain things paraphrastically." But as much as he changed, so much did he detract from its original sincerity: for it is not the paraphrases, but the native candor and style of the writer, that make the value of these things. Molanus in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium on this day extracted a little compendium from Thomas Cantipratensis, and from the information of the people of Saint-Trond. But in his Usuard of the year 1568, on the same day, he notes that the Life is had among the Preachers at Louvain; likewise among the Minors, in 36 chapters, by Livinus Brechtanus, in some places for the adornment and edification of the work enriched with words and sentences. Gelenius, On the Greatness of the City of Cologne, page 699, mentions the Life which Lupold the Carthusian of Roermond composed, adding that the Acts of Blessed Christina of Stommeln are confused with the Acts of Christina of Saint-Trond. Concerning this writer I find nothing either in Valerius Andreas in the Belgic Library, or in Theodore Petreius in the Carthusiana.

[15] and copies of the Life. Gononus, On the Lives and Sayings of the Fathers of the West, book 5, from page 327, published the Surian version; and our Bartholomew Fisen also published the Life in the Flowers of the Church of Liège from page 341; concerning which he also treats in various places in the History of Liège. I forbear to say that Vincent of Beauvais in the Historical Mirror, book 30, chapter 15, and St. Antoninus in the third part of his Histories, chapter 12, §1, report a fragment of Jacques de Vitry which the biographer wove into his prologue. Nor do I set forth that our Rader collected a few things into a compendium in the second part of the Garden of the Saints from page 81. Most well known in these regions is the Flemish Life, which is contained in the Legend of the same idiom, published under the name of our Pedro Ribadeneyra and Heribert Rosweyde. Concerning this Saint likewise Chapeauville has certain things in On the Pontiffs of Liège, tome 2, under Hugh, in the annotations to chapter 128.

[16] Which one from the various manuscript codices. In our keeping is the Life in manuscript in a double parchment codex, marked P Ms. 17 and P Ms. 19; and in another paper codex, O Ms. 12; but they do not present the desired, that is, the primitive antiquity. In one of them, which we named in the first place, there is prefixed this title in red letters: "Here begins the prologue to the Life of the marvelous Christina, described by brother Thomas subprior of the convent of Louvain, of the Order of Friars Preachers," etc. We have besides a transcript from a Ms., as Rosweyde noted on it, of Aubert Miraeus, sufficiently recent; which is noted, in another hand, to have been collated with the Ms. of Rooklooster (of the canons regular of St. Augustine near Brussels), which is entitled the second part of the Agyology (Hagiology) of the Brabanters. And the said transcript is indeed marked with this title: "The Life of the glorious virgin of Christ, Christina the Marvelous, born in the village called Brustem, by the author Thomas Cantipratensis the Dominican." Miraeus in the Fasti, page 444, says: "Entire, as it was composed by the author, it was with me in a manuscript codex; and likewise among the monks of Saint-Trond." In the Library of the Preachers also, page 252, it is noted that various codices exist among the people of Saint-Trond. Concerning that Life indeed I wrote thither on the 23rd of May of the past year 1725, but whether it lurks anywhere there, I know not; certainly I did not obtain it. Furthermore, to our Miraean transcript our Janning subscribed the following: "This Life is also in Ms. with Dom de Riemer, canon of St. Bartholomew of Liège; where I saw it in the year 1700, returning from Rome."

[17] Although it is enough to know one copy of the Life, and why this one especially is given by us here, that you may know all, taken from the same primitive fountain of Thomas Cantipratensis; yet it seemed good to commit none of the cited ones to the press, but rather another, likewise a Ms., from our parchment codex, which formerly belonged to the abbey of nuns of La Cambre, of the Cistercian Order in Belgium near Brussels; concerning which, correcting the topographical error of Ferrarius, with some other things added concerning the foundation of the place, we did in the preliminary Commentary to the Life of Blessed Boniface, bishop of Lausanne, resting there, on the 19th of February, page 149. The character of the said copy, not elegant, and here and there also faulty, we have endeavored to restore for ourselves, with various readings also added, and certain things supplied from elsewhere, as will be plain from the annotations to the text, and from the brackets in the text. It seems to present the antiquity of about the fourteenth century. That text makes a value for itself before all others which I at least have seen, from this, that at the end it sets forth the second raising of the body; and the first miracle which happened after the raising of the sacred body.

[18] From the note of time inserted in the aforesaid raising, namely the year 1249, and what was done in the edition of it. it follows, according to what was said in the paragraph above, that those two passages were afterward added to the rest of the text; but whether by the primitive author of the Life, or by another, is not certainly established. However the matter may stand, one may rejoice in the things found, which otherwise would perhaps have continued to lurk in darkness, had not the praised codex brought them into the light. But let the reader remember that we have, after our custom, distributed the whole matter into new chapters, the titles of the ancients being noted after the prologue, and marked in the course by Roman numerals (which were not appended in the text) in the margin. The title of chapter 26, here wanting, I have added from the Miraean transcript; and therefore I have enclosed that chapter in brackets.

[19] But now, before I take my hand, as they say, from the tablet, Thomas, from whom the biographer heard some things, an opportune place here offers itself of giving a fuller notice concerning Thomas, of whom we above mentioned in passing, first of the church of Blessed Mary among the people of Saint-Trond, then the twenty-ninth abbot of the monastery at Saint-Trond, as you may see in Fisen, presently to be cited; from whose mouth, not yet raised to that dignity, the biographer could understand very many things, and certainly understood some most worthy of note, which he narrates from number 47. It pleases, therefore, to hear our manuscript Chronicle of Saint-Trond, afterward to be mentioned more fully: "In the year of the Lord 1239, which was the first year of William bishop of Liège, after John II retired from this abbey, Thomas, who before his entrance into religion was the parish-priest of the church of Blessed Mary, sprung from middling townsfolk, useful for the people, afterward provost of this place, a circumspect and diligent man, is created abbot… This abbot by his diligence acquired two parts of the sculptated office, in which he placed a faithful man, who each year for eight months acted as steward."

"In the year of the Lord 1240, by the diligence of the solicitude of this abbot, the hospital, which was situated in our cemetery, with the consent of Jacques bishop of Palestrina, legate of the Apostolic See, was translated to the place where it stands in the street 'be Stapel,' on such condition that the said hospital-house, situated in our courtyard, and whatever it is known to have in the street 'de planben,' in tax and rents shall perpetually pass to our monastery: and in recompense of this assignation, to the aforesaid hospital six bonniers of land of our cultivation in Schuur, and our mill of Staden by perpetual right; and we are, as hitherto we have been, the true patrons of the hospital, and shall be."

[21] from our manuscript Chronicle of Saint-Trond, "About the same time the aforesaid abbot went to the Roman court, and obtained anew from Pope Innocent the use of the pontifical ornaments, which for cause had been withdrawn from the abbot Christian by the Pope, that he might solemnly use it: who also obtained many privileges for the advantage of our church from the same Pope… In the year of the Lord 1248, the first year of William king of Germany, B. (Beatrix, as I think) the prioress, and the whole convent of the monastery of St. Catherine in Milen promised by oath, under penalty of excommunication, into the hands of the abbot Thomas, that henceforth they should not augment the number of nuns and of brothers and sisters beyond sixty persons: concerning which promise, the abbot Thomas laboring, they obtained a confirmation from Pope Innocent IV."

[22] with his epitaph. "This abbot was an active and skillful man, who, since he had no kinsmen able to resist those doing injury to the monastery, contracted a familiarity with John de Follonio, a powerful townsman, and, bonniers of arable land being bought and conferred on him in fief, made him his vassal: who faithfully was to him as a wall against adversaries. In the same year abbot Thomas died on the 4th of the Kalends of November: whose body is buried before the altar of St. Elizabeth, having such an epitaph:"

Thomas the abbot did things worthy of the law: for by the law He bound many, upheld by his teaching. The divine word he had well set forth, and what bitter thing The sinner did, this by his confessorship departed. To the honor of the Church, that the mitre was restored to his labor, Belongs to his memory by right, and cannot die. That living fame may make this epigram sculpted for him, Readers of these things, be mindful of him.

[23] [Whether the Saint was first raised while he was serving at the altar, is not established.] A brief eulogy of that praised man Fisen gave in the Flowers of the Church of Liège on the 23rd of November; where he wove a catalogue of the abbots of Saint-Trond; adding that, while he was still parish-priest of St. Mary of Saint-Trond, in that office, when at some time he was performing the sacred rites, to life

St. Christina the Admirable is said to have returned; and this seems probable, as being easy to do: yet not certain; because it is not established for us whether her first death happened at Brustem or at Saint-Trond. Consult our annotations to chapter 1 of the Life.

§ III. Her memory in the Fasti; eulogies; her manner of life.

The Usuardine codex of Tournai, written in the same century in which our Saint died, prefixes to its text this addition: The Saint's memory is noted in the additions to Usuard, "The Natalis of St. Christina virgin"; ours, or another's? There can be a reason for doubting; because the surname "the Marvelous" is not added. Yet I judge altogether that our Saint is treated there, because, since in the continuation of the text it is said: "In Italy, in the city of Tyre, the feast of St. Christina virgin" (concerning whom we too on this day)—one is without doubt the Christina added to the Usuardine text, another the one reported in the text itself: by which added one, and indeed in the first place, who more probably could be understood than the Marvelous, I do not see; inasmuch as she could at that time be growing famous among the people of Tournai. Nor does the omission of the surname stand in the way: for that also is omitted by Henry of Ghent, likewise coeval with the Saint (according to Valerius Andreas in the Belgic Library, dead in the year 1293); who in Miraeus in the Ecclesiastical Library mentions in chapter 51 a certain holy woman in Hasbania, who was called Christina; by whom that this one, of whom we treat, is indicated, although the surname is absent, I seem able certainly to define.

[25] That surname also Molanus omits, although from elsewhere he sufficiently distinguishes this Saint from every other, not on the same day: thus marking her: "In the territory of Hasbania, the feast of Christina of holy memory, virgin: whose Life Thomas Cantipratensis wrote." Her memory I do not find in our manuscript Florarium, otherwise accustomed to announce the Belgian Saints. Yet in the catalogue of the Blessed, written by the same hand as the text, and appended at its end, is marked "Christina the Marvelous, 1st of November"; whether this indicates the day of death or only of cultus, is uncertain. In other Fasti indeed everywhere the Saint is reported on this 24th, or on the 23rd of June.

[26] The Benedictine Martyrologists on the 23rd of June commemorate her among their Saints; who is also reported in the Benedictine Fasti, Wion in the Tree of Life, part 2, has thus: "In Hasbania, in the monastery of St. Trudo, the feast of St. Christina virgin, who, once and a second time (nay a third time) dead, wrought such astonishing things as plainly exceed the sense of man." With Wion agrees Menard; but wrongly do both announce her in the monastery of St. Trudo, in which she neither lived nor died. Dorganius more correctly, without that place, spoke thus: "The feast of St. Christina virgin, of marvelous penance, who, once and a second time dead, did many astonishing things." Bucelin, in the second part of the Benedictine Annals, under the year 1224, page 25, thus most briefly: "Blessed Christina dies, commonly the Marvelous." The same author in the Benedictine Menology on this 24th day (Antonio de Heredia following him in the Lives of the Saints, published in 4 tomes in the year 1685): "In Hasbania, the feast of Blessed Christina surnamed the Marvelous, who was famous for very many miracles both in her life and after her death."

[27] The Cistercian tables report the Saint on this 24th of July. to the Cistercians, the Premonstratensians, The sacred Calendar of that Order, printed at Dijon in the year 1617, has these things: "Christina the Marvelous, blessed, in Brabant." Henriquez in the Cistercian Menology, and Chalemot in the Series of the Saints, Blessed, and illustrious men of the same Order, likewise mark her: whom, however, I do not find in the expanded Calendar of the Saints and Blessed of the same institute, printed at Brussels in the year 1620; nor in another of the same kind, which Aubert Miraeus inscribed to the most reverend Henry vander Heyden, abbot of Villers, and printed in the year 1621; who also reckons the same Saint among the Cistercians in the appendix or fifth book of the Monastic Origins, chapter 17, where he wove together the Calendar of the Saints and Blessed of that religious family. Among the Premonstratensians Peter de Waghenare places our St. Christina in his prose St. Norbert, page 145. I do not find her in the Premonstratensian Natales in John Chrysostom vander Sterre, nor in the Library of that Order in John le Paige, book 1, from page 344; where he arranged a catalogue of the Saints and Blessed.

[28] and others. Of the others, besides Felicius who reports the Saint, as we saw, on the 23rd of June, she is commemorated by the Martyrology usually alleged under the name of Canisius, on this 26th, on which also, from Molanus, Ferrarius reports her in the Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology. Rosweyde in the Fasti of the Saints whose Lives exist in manuscript in the Belgian libraries likewise notes her; to whom add Arthur in the Sacred Gynaeceum with notes, our Lahier in his Menology, and Guillaume Gazet in the Sacred Gallo-Belgic Tables, where he writes her among the Saints honored in the diocese of Liège: whom also our Bartholomew Fisen inserted in the Flowers of the Church of Liège. And from these it is plain that the Saint, so celebrated among the hagiologists, could without any scruple be reckoned by Castellanus among so many others whom he added to his universal Martyrology; in whose hagiological table he places her as omitted on the 23rd of June.

[29] Eulogies. Baronius praises the Saint under the year 1187, number 10, comprehending much in few words, when he calls her "a Virgin of great name." Miraeus has a small synopsis of the things pertaining to her in the Belgic Fasti from page 443. Our Rader deservedly calls her the "Wonder-worker" in the second part of the Garden. A small eulogy likewise Cratepolius has, to be praised below. A brief but polished eulogy Saussay inscribed in his Martyrology in these words: "There went forth today to the desired sight of the supernal Spouse Blessed Christina surnamed the Marvelous; concerning whom the astonishing things that are related so shake the human mind as at the same time to strike into it the adorable greatness of divine grace." Nearly the same, in other words, Chalemot announces, when he proclaims her surnamed the Marvelous, both on account of her miraculous life, and on account of her wonderful works. The catalogue which is prefixed to the book concerning the sacred relics of the thirty-six eminent Saints, who are exposed to public veneration in the church of St. Saviour, of the Cistercian Order at Antwerp, published by the most reverend Dom Francis Diericx, first abbot of that place, in the year 1674 at Antwerp, has that brief eulogy concerning St. Christina; in which she is called "Marvelous in fact and in name, who stood forth a prodigious portent to the world; until, a third time dead, she found immortal life."

[30] [The Benedictine hagiologists ascribe St. Christina to their Order: the Cistercians to theirs;] The monastics whom we have mentioned each reckon this Saint to their own Order. Wion, already cited, speaks thus: "She was a nun of the monastery of St. Catherine of the Order of St. Benedict near St. Trudo." Bucelin, in the place alleged above, brings forth these things: "Blessed Christina virgin the Marvelous dies (that you may recognize that even in these times our Order flourished, admirable to the living), a nun of our Order in the monastery of St. Catherine near St. Trudo." Of the Cistercians, Chrysostom Henriquez attributes her to his Order in the Calendar of the Female Saints and Blessed, which he prefixes to the book entitled Cistercian Lilies, speaking thus: "Blessed Christina surnamed the Marvelous, a sister-familiar of the Cistercian Order in Belgium." Chalemot, likewise alleged above, writes that she "… having taken the habit of the familiar of the Order, adorned the Order itself by her sanctity." And soon after he had spoken of the translation of the body, he adds these things: "But the Virgin herself remains inscribed in the Hagiology of the Order." The praised Henriquez not only hands down the same in the Cistercian Menology, which a little before we brought forth from the Lilies, but strives to establish this at greater length in the notes to the said Menology, discoursing thus: "Although the Cantipratan does not expressly assert this, that it was so is testified by Barnabas de Montalvo, tome 1 of the Chronicles, book 5, chapter 25."

[31] "And in the Gallic Calendar of the Saints of the Cistercian Order, Henriquez wrongly establishing the matter, she is reckoned among the blessed women of our institute in these words: 'Christina the Marvelous, Blessed in Brabant.' Where she is called Blessed in that sense already above declared by us. Furthermore, from the very habit which she wore, the same is gathered: for, as Barnabas de Montalvo testifies, she used a white tunic and a mantle or cloak of the same color; which kind of garments, as is established from our ancient constitutions, was proper to the Cistercian virgins. But the nuns of St. Catherine, where the pious Woman died, and at length was buried, always used a black habit: whence it is established that she was not a Benedictine, as some hold, but a Cistercian. Which Angelus Manrique also testifies in his Calendar published at Salamanca, ascribing her to the Cistercian institute. Moved, therefore, by the authority of so great men, I could not but reckon her among the sacred virgins." But too easily would Henriquez have believed those authors, because he most eagerly wished it to be true which they asserted. Montalvo, printed in Spanish at Madrid in the year 1602, page 262, deceives or is deceived, when, to prove St. Christina's monastic institute, he cites the words of the prologue to the Life of Blessed Marie of Oignies; where, in the place cited by us in number 4, are these things:

[32] "Whence, when a certain Saint, still one of the monks of St. Bernard in the abbey which is called Aulne, with Barnabas de Montalvo, who foully hallucinates. was soldiering for the Lord, and from simplicity doubted of what kind were those men and women who were called by certain new names by the malicious; he received in prayer this reply from the Holy Spirit: 'They will be found stable in faith, and effective in works.'" But Montalvo thus narrates these things, translated from the Spanish: "While nuns and many secular persons murmured concerning them (he treats of Blessed Marie of Oignies and St. Christina), because, wearing their habit, and being religious, they went forth outside the monastery, the Lord revealed to that His servant that their life was very pleasing to Him: for when on a certain day he was giving himself to prayer, asking God whether the murmuring which was made against these His handmaids was just; he heard a voice from heaven saying to him: 'They will be found firm and stable in faith, and effective in work.'" The things which Vitry relates concerning women in general (for, a few things being interposed, he soon subjoins: "But let us now descend … to the individual persons") Montalvo wrongly wrests to Marie of Oignies and Christina the Marvelous. Likewise not a jot in Vitry, in the words brought forward, concerning their monastic habit or religious life. Whence Montalvo is convicted of having added or dreamed what he wished, and by no means found. Wrongly, therefore, he hands down that our Saint was a nun; that by wearing the Cistercian habit she was as it were a blessed or devout woman; that she lived under the obedience of the abbess of St. Catherine: and finally, that the monastery of St. Catherine outside the walls of St. Trudo was of the Cistercian Order; which is most false.

[33] [The Premonstratensians also attribute the Saint to themselves: but that she was bound to no certain religious institute,] The praised Waghenare thus asserts the Saint to the Premonstratensian institute in the cited place: "She was a sister-familiar, not of the Cistercian Order, as Henriquez asserts in his Menology, but of the Premonstratensian Order; as the aforesaid most reverend Lord abbot of Tongerlo (Dom Augustine Wichmans) signified to me: for by the Averbode religious of our Order,

pastors in Brustem, having been directed, and clothed in the habit of our Order, namely a white tunic and a mantle or cloak of the same color, she walked." Three religious Orders, therefore, claim the Saint for themselves; whom I judge to belong to none. 1. Because no suitable author, that I know, hands that down. 2. Because the Cantipratan is silent about it, though accurate in reporting several things of lesser moment: and this without any doubt he would not have omitted to indicate here, as elsewhere he commemorates the double institute of the religious life of St. Lutgard, and indeed her passing from one to the other; as will be said in the next paragraph. 3. The argument which is drawn from the Saint's garment (concerning which the Life, chapter 4) proves nothing certain for a monastic or religious state. Whence, while on one side Waghenare, on the other Henriquez, both draw the same argument from the dress for an utterly different institute, and both clothe the Saint in the habit of their own Order, by the mutual reasons on both sides which are sought thence, they fight against one another, and settle nothing.

[34] is proved, But suppose St. Christina bore some likeness of monastic dress; does it thence rightly follow that she was a nun of some Order? To this, she could be directed by the Premonstratensians, and yet not be a Premonstratensian: just as St. Christina of Stommeln was not on that account properly a Dominican nun. As to what Waghenare above said concerning Wichmans; I answer that it is not asked what that abbot said, but whether he could prove the things which he said. But if anyone, from St. Christina's entrance, exit, and return into the religious cloister of St. Catherine near Saint-Trond, and from her life spent there for the most part, and her death at last there, should contend by some singular title that she belonged there, not by profession of the religious life, which she never made, but by affection alone; we shall not much resist: and by nearly the same title we shall give her to the Benedictine virgins, by which we gave the one of Stommeln to the Dominicans; as you may see in the cited tome, page 272, number 9. Hence the words of Beatrix to the Saint, which you have in the Life, number 52: "O Christina, you were always obedient to me in life," understand not of religious obedience, but of a conformation of wills, such as is between friends.

[35] nor to belong to the Beguines. Nor say with Castellanus in the hagiological table to his universal Martyrology, that St. Christina the Marvelous was a Beguine; for if the epoch of the manuscript Chronicle of Saint-Trond be true, in which is read: "The state of the Beguines began in the year of the Lord 1245," the Saint had already long before died; but if, with the great Belgic Chronicle, afterward to be mentioned, under the year 1168, tome 3, page 193, you attribute this to Lambert le Bègue, from whose name the Beguines are still called: because "he first found the order of the Beguines, and first preached to them the norm of chastity by word and example"; concerning whom also Miraeus in the Cistercian Chronicle, Fisen in the Flowers of the Church of Liège on the 25th of June, and most recently Hippolyte Helyot in the Monastic History, tome 8, page 3, may be consulted; then the time will not indeed fight against the Saint's having been a Beguine; yet this institute of life we deny her, because the biographer disclosed nothing about it. We think, therefore, that she lived in a secular state, bound by no certain laws of a religious or conventual community. And concerning her manner of life enough has been said; it follows that certain other adjuncts of the Saint be elucidated.

[*] First (primo).

§ IV. Her homeland, the day and year of death, the chronology of her life; her burial, the translation of her body, its present state; her relics, her public veneration.

Denys the Carthusian, in the passage brought forth from On the Four Last Things, hands down to our purpose these things: "Christina … was born in the town of St. Trudo; [Her homeland, concerning which it is not otherwise sufficiently distinctly established,] or, as some say, in the village named Brusten, situated near the aforesaid town"; who rather divide the place of her homeland than determine it individually. The transcript of Miraeus more determines it, chapter 1, when it asserts that she was born "of a certain village of a noble man, the count of Los, which is commonly called Brustem, near the town of St. Trudo in Hasbania of the diocese of Liège." The Ms. of Rooklooster in the title of the Life places "of St. Trudo," but in chapter 1 asserts that she was born at Brustem; see the annotations to chapter 1. Furthermore, that place lies adjacent to the aforesaid town, where it faces Borgloon between south and east. In the cited Surius is read "born … in the town of St. Trudo"; but in the edition of the year 1618 an asterisk is placed in the margin together with these words: "otherwise, in the village which is called Brustem." The copy which we give to the press, our paper codex likewise mentioned above, Fisen, and Cratepolius, On the Bishops or Saints of Germany, page 41, where he compendiously reports some things concerning St. Christina, make her of Saint-Trond. Constantius Felicius on the 23rd of June ridiculously ascribes her to "Albania, of the castle of St. Trudonius upon the river Meuse, which was called Mirantius." As many words, so nearly many falsehoods. From what has been said we deduce that, already from the time of Denys the Carthusian, it was not sufficiently distinctly and certainly established concerning the Saint's birthplace: and because now the codices of the Life vary, nor is it known which is the genuine reading, let us say that it is not thence sufficiently certain whether she began to live at Brustem near Saint-Trond, or rather in the very town of Saint-Trond.

[37] But Mantelius, in his Hasselt or compendium of the history of Loon, chapter 17, defines the matter, otherwise not sufficiently certain, we think it is Brustem, with Mantelius. speaking thus: "That great and immortal glory of the county of Loon (Christina the Marvelous) was brought into the light at Brustem, an allodial village of the counts, not, as some think, at Saint-Trond, merely because the Cantipratan, Vitry, and others write her of Saint-Trond from the opinion of the common people; because she stayed there as long as possible, being those to whom it was no care to inquire into the place of her birth. That she was of Brustem, and born at Brustem (but in what precise year is unknown), testify, besides John of Brustem (a Franciscan by profession, of Saint-Trond by homeland, who flourished in the year 1545, as Valerius Andreas hands down in the Belgic Library), and the compiler of the Chronicle of Saint-Trond (in ours, however, the Ms., I find nothing about this matter), the ancient monuments of that most celebrated monastery; in which I observed in more than ten places, noted in express words, that St. Christina the Marvelous was brought into the light at Brustem; nay even the opinion refuted of those who think her of Saint-Trond from that conjecture which I mentioned." And from these things we think it more probable that the Saint belongs to the people of Brustem.

[38] [On what day she died is uncertain; concerning the year of death it is established, yet not sufficiently determinately.] The day of death I nowhere find in the biographer; on which point he deservedly seems blameworthy, as one who without great trouble could have learned it. Whereby it has come about that on a different day by different persons, and perhaps on neither the proper and her own, the Saint's memory is reported. Surius confesses that it is not yet established for him concerning it: yet it seemed good to him to subjoin the Life to the deeds of Blessed Marie of Oignies, on the 23rd of June; and he alleges the causes of his deed, but merely arbitrary; on which day also Wion inscribes the Saint in the Tree of Life. On what foundation, in Arthur in the notes to this 24th day, and in the Library of the Preachers mentioned, it is asserted that she died on the said 23rd, hitherto escapes me. In the additions added to Usuard, in Molanus in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium, and in others more recent, she is placed on this 24th of July; concerning which matter above, among the announcements and eulogies. Nor indeed did the praised biographer, elsewhere accurate enough, fulfill every jot of accuracy in marking the year of death, saying that she died "about … the year 1224"; where you see, by the adverb "about," the year of death not sufficiently determinately and distinctly expressed; which is strange, after so small an interval as intervened between the Saint's death and the biographer's writing, that it did not happen more determinately. From the true year of death most certainly erred Peter Waghenare, in the passage brought forth, saying that she "most happily passed to Christ about the year 1234."

[39] The chronology of the Life is arranged, The chronology of the Life I arrange approximately thus. The year of birth, passed over by the biographer, was 1150. In the year 1165, at the age of 15, her two sisters appointed her, being younger, to keep the flocks going to pasture; consult the Life, number 4; from which time, being deputed to a cheaper and humbler office, Christ was not lacking as consoler: nay rather He gave her the grace of inward sweetness, and visited her with celestial secrets, until the year of Christ about 1182, at the age of 32; when the first time she died and came to life again; but not in the year 1186, as, incidentally, the matter not yet examined, it is said in tome 4 of the month of June, page 270: since, according to what has been said, she died about the year 1224, and, by the same biographer's testimony, number 54, she lived, "after she first rose again, forty-two years." But since much before that time (number 32) she foretold that the holy land of Jerusalem would be subjected to the impious Saracens, the year not being marked in which she foretold it, let us suppose that she foretold it in the year 1183, four years before it happened; unless perhaps she foretold it before her first death, and indeed some years before it, so that she may properly be understood to have foretold the event of the matter "MUCH BEFORE" the time. "And when the day had come (in the same place) on which Jerusalem was taken by Solahadin (Saladin), … she herself, placed in the castle of Loon, knew the event of the matter in spirit," namely in the year 1187, on the 28th of September or the 2nd of October, when that tragedy happened. See the annotations on this passage.

[40] From the topographical mark "Loon," in which the Saint knew the said event, several of the Saint's deeds it seems that it can somehow be argued that it happened during that nine-year period, concerning which the Life thus narrates in number 38: "She sought the castle … which is called Loon: where, making a stay of nine years with a certain recluse of most religious life, Iveta by name, the Lord wrought marvels through her." To which she betook herself about the year 1186: although Fisen in the history of the church of Liège, under the year 1192, speaks thus: "When she came to Iveta, no one has disclosed: this certainly I seem to have ascertained, that she came before the fourth year of the following century." About the same time of the aforesaid stay I place the miraculous song, with which she is said in that place to have been endowed, number 39; to which perhaps the year 1192 may, with the praised Fisen, also be reduced the highest esteem and observance with which Ludovicus count of Loon is handed down by the biographer, number 41, to have followed the Saint; and he then began to love her from the heart. Concerning the two prophecies it is discoursed below in a singular paragraph. In the year 1213, in the month of October, she sees in spirit a battle (number 25).

[41] She prepares the count of Loon for death (number 44), and shares with him the penalties of the purging fire (number 45), in the year of Christ 1218, each recalled somehow to its own times. in which that he departed life is certainly gathered from a double diploma (but not in the year 1217, as it is in Mantelius, book 6 of the History of Loon, page 170; which double diploma you have in the supplement of Miraeus, to the diplomatic and historical works, tome 2, pages 845 and 846 of the most recent edition of the year 1723: for the one, which is of Ludovicus, is marked in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1218: but the other, of Arnold count of Loon, who was the brother and heir of the said Ludovicus, is noted in the same year;

to say nothing of a third, approving the former two, likewise given in the same year by Hugh bishop of Liège). In the last year of her life, by the biographer's testimony, number 46, "solitude and the desert were frequently her dwelling," namely about the year 1223; to which also pertain both the marvels there reported, and her return to the town of St. Trudo, when she more often stayed in the monastery of St. Catherine. About which time she had the alternate dialogues between her soul and body set forth from number 47; and this is concluded from these words: "Now the end of your labor is at hand; now you shall rest in the dust." Finally, about the year 1224, she died a second and a third time (numbers 52 and 53), at about the age of 74; in the 42nd year after her first return to life, as the writer of the Life notes in number 54. But to these things, which pertain to her life and death, let there be subjoined the things which happened after her life.

[42] She was buried, moreover (in the same number 54), outside the town of St. Trudo in the monastery of St. Catherine, [The things which pertain to her burial and the translation of her body are explained;] where also she had closed her last day, which monastery was of nuns of the Order of St. Benedict; and she rested there seven years, namely until the time when they translated her body, and the whole edifice of the monastery, to a more suitable and nearer place. Concerning which matter the manuscript Chronicle of Saint-Trond, which we have, brought down by the compiler even to his own times (as is plain from the preface), concerning the deeds of the twelve abbots from folio 275 to 346, ending in the year 1366, hands down the following: "In the year of the Lord 1231 the whole edifice of the monastery of St. Catherine, situated in the suburb of the town of St. Trudo, which is called 'at St. Catherine's,' was translated to a more suitable place: and Libert the abbot conferred on the said monastery the confluence of the waters with all his temporal jurisdiction." And it is subjoined: "Under the same translation the holy body of Christina the Marvelous, which for seven years had been buried in the place of the former monastery, is exhumed, and transferred to the place of the new habitation." But concerning this matter more below. Let us note meanwhile, with Fisen in the Flowers of the Church of Liège, page 277, that today only the church of St. Catherine of that former monastery survives.

[43] [the Flemish Legend being corrected, and mention being made in passing concerning St. Lutgard.] Wrongly, therefore, the Flemish Life before the Saint's Life says that she rests in the monastery of St. Catherine near Saint-Trond; especially since at the end of that same Life it is expressly noted that she rested there for seven years, until the monastery of St. Catherine was translated to a more fitting place, and then that her sepulcher was opened, etc. In the said monastery of St. Catherine St. Lutgard professed the institute of the Benedictine Order, as you may see on the 16th of June in her Life, chapter 1, number 1; of which monastery also she is created prioress, chapter 2, number 20; and the abbot of St. Trudo is called the "spiritual father of that same monastery of St. Catherine," number 21: whence St. Lutgard, by divine instinct, and by the admonition of St. Christina, passed to Aywières of the Cistercian Order, number 22; where, as far as pertains to the memory of our Saint, it is thus said: "But also a certain most blessed virgin, Christina by name … compelled by the Spirit divinely, came to her, bursting into these words: 'Why do you delay,' she said, 'to fulfill those things which are commanded you by divine instinct?'"

[44] [Whence we have received the things which we here give concerning the present state of the body.] Furthermore, at the time when not long ago I was occupied in illustrating the Acts of St. Christina, because our stock of material on that subject was very scanty, it pleased me to have recourse for fuller notice to the very venerable Dom Benedict vander Borcht, the most worthy prior of the abbey of Saint-Trond, who spared no labor, that he might satisfy both his own zeal for the Saint and us. To the most obliging courtesy of the man we owe especially the things which we received concerning the present state of the sacred remains of St. Christina, as is plain from the following authentic testimony, transmitted to us on this matter, and subscribed by the hand of the Very Reverend and Amiable Father Peter Diels, confessor at Milen, which has thus: "In the abbey of Milen are all the bare bones of Christina the Marvelous, enclosed in a silver casket, placed in a chapel called the chapel of St. Christina. The 'Pechys' or bone of the arm from the elbow to the joint of the hand, some years ago was sent to the count Palatine, who had asked for it for the Grand Duke of Tuscany: who received that relic, and in a token of gratitude gave to the aforesaid monastery a monstrance adorned with rare and precious jewels; a gift certainly worthy of so great a duke."

[45] Relics brought from Portugal to Antwerp, and there honored. In the first tome of April, page 73, among the very many sacred pledges brought from Portugal to Antwerp, and given to the abbot there of St. Saviour, of the Cistercian Order, by Emmanuel son of Antonio, of the king of Portugal, in the year 1633, there is noted under number 22 "a part of the backbone of St. Christina the Marvelous." On what occasion the sacred remains there enumerated came to Antwerp, is set forth from page 72; and on page 74 it is said concerning the translation of the relics of the Belgian female Saints into Italy, and thence into Portugal, which, a confraternity being instituted at Antwerp in the year 1671, and by a solemn translation in 1672, were honored; whose remarkable pomp the most reverend Diericx, praised above, describes from page 242. Hither pertains the following chronogram inscribed on the image of our Saint: "DIVa ChrIstIna VIrgo Vere MIrabILIs" (St. Christina, virgin, truly Marvelous). And in the dedication of the public disputations, a chronographic one, inscribed to these Saints, it is said, "ChristInæ In VIta sUa Vere aDMIrabILI" (To Christina, in her life truly Admirable).

[46] Concerning the modern veneration at Milen these few things the testimony cited above teaches: Their present cultus at Milen, "To the aforesaid chapel some persons come at times to honor Christina the Marvelous, offering either candles, or waxen images, or other devotional things. On the feast of St. Catherine [*] the nuns every year sing a Mass from the Common of Virgins in her honor, nor do they have any other particular Office, nor Litanies, nor prayers." Among the names of the Saints, male and female, announcing each one's day, on which their annual solemnities are celebrated with the public veneration of relics and various indulgences in the church of St. Saviour at Antwerp, on this 24th of July is placed St. Christina the Marvelous; as may be seen in the book alleged several times.

[47] That the Saint was long since honored in Portugal with public veneration, and formerly in Portugal. a solemn Mass, and canonical Office, we learn from the diploma of the most illustrious John Álvarez de Lusana, bishop of Oporto, given on the 17th of January in the year 1627 for the truth of the oft-mentioned relics, which is there brought forth from page 231; and in which the praised most illustrious one thus testifies to our purpose: "We add that We (while We dwelt in the provostship of the royal chapel) often presented the said true relics to the king, the queen, and their children, and other nobles of the court, and also to thousands of the faithful of Christ, to be kissed for veneration. Moreover we affirm, on faith, as above, that We, with the chaplains of the kingdom and their vicars, from special Pontifical indults, obtained even after Trent from the Congregation of Sacred Rites, and approved by the Apostolic See, always kept the annual feast of each Saint, male and female, and celebrated it chorally with a solemn divine Office, and chanted the High Mass concerning the said thirty-five Saints in the proper or in the common, as long as the said treasure of the sacred relics existed in the royal chapel." And our Saint indeed is noted among the feasts which, according to the aforesaid indults, were accustomed to be celebrated with a simple Office, which has at Matins three lessons with the psalms of the occurring feria, according to the rubrics, arranged in the order of the divine Office on such feasts. In the supplement of the said tome, page 898, from the authentic bull of the bishop of Oporto it is said whence and on what occasion the several parts of the said relics came into the power of the kings of Portugal, for the fuller notice of the things which had been cited and said with us.

[*] Perhaps of Christina (Christinae).

§ V. Various prophecies of St. Christina are elucidated; the wounds of Christ ineptly imputed to her.

[The famine which St. Christina foretold, whether, with the copies of the Life, it is to be referred to the year 1170 or 1270,] Our biographer in the Life which we give to the press writes thus concerning the Saint, number 34: "She also foretold, a long time before, the greatest famine, which was about the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1170." The same year is noted in our paper codex, O Ms. 12; in place of which year, in our parchment codices, P Ms. 17 and P Ms. 19, together with the transcript of Miraeus, collated with the Ms. of Rooklooster, and the printed texts in Surius cited above, is found "about the year 1270." Fisen in the history of the church of Liège, under the year 1224, discourses thus: "In midsummer a violent heat had scorched the crops; when, on the 8th of the Kalends of August, a wind fell upon the fields with such force that, striking the grains from the ears dried by the vapor of the sky, it mocked the most abundant hope of the husbandmen. This pest invaded Germany, Gaul, Spain, and, the grain-supply being consumed through the winter, so grievously afflicted all the provinces that, men being wasted with hunger, the roads and fields were everywhere strewn with corpses; nay, wolves, bursting from the woods, raged against men, and frequently snatched infants from their mothers. This is that calamity which Blessed Christina foresaw, and long before foretold."

[49] or, with Fisen, to the year 1224 "Although in Surius it is read to have happened in the seventieth year: but wrongly; since I find no famine in that year; and what most persuades me, the Cantipratan in the prologue of that Life affirms that he wrote in the thirtieth year (nay, about 32, as is plain from what has been said above), in which of course he could say nothing of the seventieth." Thus he, citing the Chronicle of Hirsau; in which under the year 1225 I read these things: "The winter this year was both hard and very long: which a most grievous famine, lasting two years, followed, in which many miserably perished." The great Belgic Chronicle, among the old writers of German affairs drawn out from the library of Pistorius, tome 3, page 215, thus writes: "In the … twenty-fifth year of Hugh (of Pierrepont, bishop of Liège) (of Christ 1224), when there was excessive drought, on the feast of St. Christopher a strong wind shook the ears of grain: for which so great a dearness followed, that a modius of wheat was sold for 27 Liège solidi, and wolves around the Rhine rushed upon men, and carried off infants

on account of the excessive famine." And from these things the famine of that time is sufficiently established, which Fisen above holds to have been foretold by St. Christina; but whether that prediction can be understood only of this, and not of another famine, remains to be inquired.

[50] it must be referred, That famine, in three manuscript copies, as we have already said, to which add Surius, is connected with about the year 1270. Fisen will rejoin, "but wrongly; since I find no famine in that year." But he might perhaps have found it in Siffridus, presbyter of Meissen, who was published among the Old Writers of German Affairs, tome 1, from page 682. He, in his Epitome, brought down from the year 458 to 1307, book 2, under the year 1271, hands down the following: "In Germany there was a strong famine, and it lasted three years; so that many men perished of hunger." A German famine, therefore, we here have; but whether at the same time a Hasbanian and our own, of which we discourse, foretold by St. Christina? What, you will say, compels [us] to reject the epoch of about the year 1271, and to adopt another of the year 1224, which is not found marked in any of those copies of the Life which I at least have seen? "What most persuades me," says Fisen, "the Cantipratan in the prologue of that Life affirms that he wrote in the thirtieth year, in which of course he could say nothing of the seventieth." And why? Is it because in that year he had already ceased to live?

[51] it is inquired, But truly, "How long he prolonged his life, or in what year (the Cantipratan) died, nothing certain is found among the authors," it is said in the Library of the Order of Preachers cited; some asserting that he lived to 1263, only with Lipsius, others with Colvener that he reached 1280. That he lived to the year 1270 or 1272 is there conjectured. Nor indeed could Valerius Andreas define anything certain concerning the year of his death in the Belgic Library. Not, therefore, from the obituary year of the praised Cantipratan does the era of that famine certainly slip; concerning which all things are uncertain: nay rather, from the same it might perhaps somehow probably be concluded that he even then survived in that year, if we admit that the aforesaid famine, with its epoch, was truly marked by him. A great interval of time, I confess, from the first composition of the Life down to the year 1270, in which the oft-mentioned famine happened, must then be interposed; but what if the author, of a Life composed by him already long before, afterward, if indeed he lived so long, or if he did not live, some other perhaps added either the prediction of the famine, or at least the year in which it happened? And these things indeed might be said for the year 1270; if they did not so clearly fight with the time in which the Life was written; and consequently published. Certainly that addition, so late and preposterous, is by no means probable; and thus Fisen's argument stands so far.

[52] But I ask of Fisen why, if he rejects this chronological mark, But those epochs, and another of the year 1196 he substituted for it the year 1224 rather than the year 1196, in which, equally as in that, a dire famine raged, as, after others, our Peter d'Outerman hands down, book 1 of the Belgic Constantinople, §3, page 53, and Fisen himself in the History of Liège under that year? To us certainly it stands fixed in the place of an axiom, not to change the epochs of the Lives, except when they must manifestly and necessarily be changed, because they do not stand; which, since here it is not the case, our epoch must be kept, as far as can be, concerning that famine, marked about the year 1170 in this copy which we publish, and in another copy likewise. For truly the chronology of the Life, arranged above by us, does not manifestly overturn it: for set the Saint's birth about the year of Christ 1150; and her sisters appointed the younger Christina to keep the flocks going to pasture about the 15th year of her age, of Christ 1165; when Christ visited her more often with celestial secrets; among which if you place that prediction, which she (although she then remained unknown to all) could nevertheless announce beforehand to her sisters or friends (as she set forth what had happened to her after her first death, from the Life, numbers 5 and 6), it will now be understood in what manner she foretold it much time before, namely about five years.

[53] And in this way we judge that epoch can somehow be preserved: seems preferable, which is marked in two copies, of the year 1170. although it certainly is not without its difficulty; as anyone will sufficiently understand who attentively weighs it. To that epoch of the year 1170, therefore, we give the palm before the other, both because it is marked in two copies, and because in those others one "c" could easily be added; and finally because the thing foretold can less difficultly and less awkwardly be reconciled with the time of the writer of the Life, of the Saint foretelling, and of the event of the prediction; although I am compelled to confess (which is hard) that I have hitherto learned nothing from elsewhere concerning a famine of the year 1170.

[54] But now the disaster of Steps or Steppes, which the Saint foretold, Concerning the disaster of Steps, which the Saint foretold, indicated by a little word by the biographer in the Life, number 29, must here only be briefly illustrated. It was fought between the people of Liège and the Brabanters in the year 1213, victory in every respect complete favoring the former against the latter. Furthermore, the cause of the dissension, its continuation, and end, which surround this famous battle, are set forth by our manuscript Chronicle of Saint-Trond, Butkens in the Trophies of Brabant, tome 1, book 4, chapter 4, under the year 1211, from page 176; and under the year 1213, from page 181, Mantelius in the Compendium of the History of Loon, chapter 20, from the Chronicle of Saint-Trond, and Fisen in the History of Liège, book 12, where he also commemorates the most strenuous efforts of the duke of Loon in that battle. The laurel of so illustrious a palm is attributed to the patronage of St. Lambert the Martyr, bishop and tutelary patron of the people of Liège (concerning whom on the 17th of September), whose cause was being pleaded. Which it may be enough here to have tasted in passing, a very few things being cast into the annotations. More closely pertains hither the day on which this battle was joined.

[55] and its day. "The day," says the praised Fisen, number 18, "was Sunday; on which they noted that the beginning of the Mass was given by this sentence of the Psalmist: Just art Thou, O Lord, and Thy judgment is right. It was the thirteenth of October: for all our countrymen constantly assert with one voice that it was fought on the day before St. Calixtus's: not, therefore, on the 28th of April, as it pleases Divaeus; who perhaps, having heard that the triumph of St. Lambert is celebrated at Liège on that day, believed it to be that of Steppes; whereas it is the one of Bouillon, which likewise this year fell on Sunday: concerning which the same author under the year 1141, from number 6; but concerning the annual celebration of the Bouillon triumph with the translation of St. Lambert under the year 1143, number 11; under whose auspices likewise that victory was reckoned as received." And from what has been said the day is confirmed and determined, which in the codices of Miraeus and of Rooklooster is said indeed to have been of October, but in the other Mss. is not placed. See the annotations to chapter 3, letter d.

[56] The place also of another prophecy, In the third prophecy of the Saint, related by the biographer in number 43 in brief and confused terms, by which she foretold the treachery impending over Ludovicus count of Loon, it must first be considered concerning the place in which that prediction happened, namely the palace of Loon, which "now," says the same biographer—at the time, at any rate, in which he was writing the Saint's Life—"is destroyed," and thus already about the year 1232, in which he wrote, lay destroyed. But when did that destruction happen? Mantelius in the History of Loon, in the above-cited book 7, page 184, candidly confesses that he could not yet know under what count or in what year that devastation (of the castle, as, for "palace," which is in our manuscript copies, he himself has with Surius) happened; adding that it by no means seems to him strange that, "after four and more centuries, … so scanty vestiges of that formerly most noble castle exist today. The town," he says, "retains the name of the castle, and is called Loscastrum; a mound of earth, eminent near the collegiate church, which the inhabitants call the Burg, that is, the castle, does not seem to have been anything but the watchtower of the ancient citadel, or a tower higher than the rest, which could not so easily be leveled, and preserves the marks both of its ancient height and of its ruins." But whether that palace was the same place as the ancient castle of Loon, as Mantelius supposes, or rather another and different from it, may be further inquired, but not easily decided. Whatever it be, that palace, and perhaps the same castle, was situated at Loon, by the biographer's testimony.

[57] the persons Attention must also be paid to the persons who are there placed without a name; namely the duke of Limburg with another count. By that one, according to the subsequent system of the prophecy concerning the Dutch disaster, I understand Henry, whom Fisen names under the years 1201, 1203, and the cited Butkens, book 4, chapter 4, page 165, on occasion of a subscription of letters; but by this other one that William, or Guilielmus, count of Holland, seems to be indicated, I think one will be persuaded from what follows, in which we shall discourse concerning the prophecy itself, that the reader may know what it probably was, and to what it is to be referred. And indeed who was that traitor, who is there indicated under a concealed name? William count of Holland, or Henry duke of Limburg? William, as I think; although someone might perhaps suspect something similar concerning Henry also, but certainly on a lesser foundation, as it is easy somehow to draw out from the things which will be said.

[58] Fisen under the year 1192 refers that prophecy to the Dutch disaster, the time, etc. concerning which treat John de Beka and William Heda On the Bishops of Utrecht under Theodoric II, Mantelius in the Compendium alleged several times, chapter 20, and the same Fisen under the year 1204, whose words there I transcribe hither, that this whole matter of the prediction may become clear. He speaks thus: "When (Ludovicus of Loon) had taken as wife the only daughter and heir of Theodoric count of Holland, Ada by name, he at the same time entered upon that noble principality. But most of the Hollanders, averse to the feminine disposition of the mother-in-law and her impotent domination, hating also a foreign lord, Ludovicus of Loon being driven out, inaugurated to the principality Theodoric's brother William, count of eastern Frisia. It seemed good to the one of Loon to avenge the atrocious injury by arms: and, aided by the garrisons of several, he easily routed the enemy; and he would not with difficulty have retained the recovered province, had he not too hastily, the war being as it were finished, dismissed the bishop of Utrecht. For then William began to breathe again, and dared to renew the war."

[59] "When Limburg had come to him, to exhort him to peace, are set forth. whether William terrified [him] by a magnificent display of forces; or whether indeed he himself cultivated a faith too little whole, having returned to the one of Loon, he filled the camp with terror, and, the standards being torn up, led his forces home. The rest, disturbed, while they looked about for a safe retreat, William fell upon them with all his forces, and dissipated them with a foul slaughter. The one of Loon, broken in spirit, despaired of better things. Peace

therefore he admitted, Holland being left to William, when he had received ten thousand marks of silver." And these things indeed concerning the threefold prophecy of the Saint, expressly set forth by the biographer above many others: for, by the same witness, number 29, "she was famous in the spirit of prophecy in MANY things"; and number 34, "Christina foretold also very many other things, which are now fulfilled, and which we believe are to be fulfilled." To this is added the perceiving of secret things, by which she scrutinized the inmost and hidden things of hearts: as you may see in the same numbers 29 and 30.

[60] In Arthur du Moustier, in the notes to his Gynaeceum, on this 24th day is placed a brief eulogy of St. Christina the Marvelous, The Stigmata of Christ wrongly ascribed to our Saint by Arthur. which is consonant with that which we above brought forth from Saussay; but in it is unlike, that there the Saint is reported bearing the stigmata in her body: which is a mere fabrication of Arthur, arisen from the synonymy of another Christina, concerning whom Denys the Carthusian treats in his sixth sermon On the Sacrament of the Eucharist toward the end, which he cites; where are these things: "This brief writing I designate and transmit to you, most devout handmaids of Christ. This to you, Mechtild, who lie at Nijmegen because of the weakness of your little body… To you also, Christina … who also, after the manner of Christ, lately bore five wounds in your body; whose stigmata even now are seen in you… To your most sincere prayers I humbly recommend myself and mine, and with my whole heart I pray for your unceasing progress, I brother Denys," etc. 1. Therefore here is most plainly indicated a Christina synchronous with Denys, concerning whom he was writing, and then, when he was writing, still living; which things, from what has been said above, in the reckoning of time fight with our Christina. 2. Concerning stigmata imprinted on her body, no one of all whom I have seen even dreamed. 3. Most unskillfully also Arthur cites the Auctarium of Raissius to the Natales of the Saints of Belgium of Molanus under the 16th of March; where the matter treated is not concerning our Saint, but concerning the earlier one, from Denys. Thus error hands down error, where without distinction and choice things utterly different, by the whole heaven, are adopted.

§ VI. Diplomas in favor of the monastery of Milen, to which the body of St. Christina was translated.

Diplomas are set forth in favor of the monastery of Milen. The monastery of Milen, venerable by the sacred deposit of the remains of St. Christina the Marvelous, can be illustrated by several diplomas, which the Dom Benedict vander Burcht, praised by us above, transcribed with his own hand and sent hither: which we do the more gladly, because those diplomas, as far as we know, are hitherto unpublished, and thus will see the light not without utility to the curious reader.

[62] A public notary testifies concerning the value of the diplomas exhibited to him: "In the name of the Lord, Amen. By this present public instrument let it be evidently plain to all, that in the year of the Lord's nativity 1371, in the 9th Indiction, on the 25th day of April, at the hour of compline, of the most holy Father in Christ and Lord Gregory Pope XI, in the first year of his pontificate, there being for this purpose personally present the religious damsel Elisabeth, called de Mombeke, nun and subprioress of the monastery and convent of Milen, of nuns, near the town of St. Trudo, of the Order of St. Benedict, of the diocese of Liège, in the name and on the part of the religious lady the Lady Maria de Bruys, prioress of the said monastery and convent, and of the said convent, she exhibited to me the public notary certain letters, sealed clearly with the seals of several trustworthy persons, as appears in the original letters, not cancelled, not effaced, not erased, nor in any part of them vitiated, and lacking all suspicion, to be copied word for word: the tenors of which follow in these words."

[63] [of which the first, of the year 1219, contains the sale of the court of Milen in favor of the church of St. Catherine,] The first diploma, therefore, sounds thus: "Gotbert, noble man of Orbais, to those present and to come, forever. The providence of all requires that what is reasonably done should, lest it slip away with the lapse of time, be confirmed by perpetual writing. Wherefore I make known to those present and to come, that the court of Milen, which I possessed in fief from Arnold count of Loon, resigned into his hands, as is more fully expressed in his letters, with his assent, with the whole integrity of justice in the pleas, in the mill, in the fields, in the woods, in the meadows, with absolutely all its appurtenances, I have sold to the church of St. Catherine for five hundred and twenty-five pounds of whites, Jolenda lady of Yrgis, whose daughter I had to wife, giving her assent, and all my heirs consenting.

[64] Moreover, in regard of God and of the blessed Virgin, and of the martyr Catherine, patronesses of the church of Milen, [with an anniversary: the second commemorates the benefits conferred on the same church:] I have conferred absolutely on the aforenamed church, that the sisters living regularly in it may observe my anniversary, when I shall be no more, but also that of my wife Eva, and of her brother Aegidius Jolendus also of Yrgis, with perpetual prayers, but also of lord Hugh of Florins. All which, that they may remain firm and forever ratified, since my sons and all my heirs have lawfully renounced their rights, I have fortified with my seal, and subnoted suitable witnesses. Witnesses of this matter are Clarebald of Hauterive, Philip of Tunggernels, Bernard the knight, and very many others. Done in the year of grace 1219, Hugh the venerable bishop presiding at Liège." The second diploma contains the benefits of the praised Arnold count of Loon and of Gobert of Orbais toward the monastery of St. Catherine in Milen, and is marked in the year 1219. This we here omit, because it is read published in the Supplement to the Diplomatic Works of Miraeus, reprinted in the year 1723, or in the second tome of them, page 847; from the History of Loon; in which it is had on page 176.

[65] The third diploma contains these things: "Aegidius, the third approves the aforesaid, noble man, son of Gotbert the noble, to those present and to come who shall inspect the present writing, forever, I make known both to those present and to come, that the sale which my father the lord Gotbert, noble man of Brul, made with the prioress and convent of the nuns of St. Catherine concerning the court of Milen, and all its dependencies, as is contained in his letters, and the alms which he faithfully bestowed on that same church for his own and his people's salvation, I hold ratified and pleasing, and I protest that I concur with spontaneous assent, and, in conferring [it] as a true alms on the aforesaid church, I renounce forever all complaint and action, so that no person in my name can henceforth disturb the said church.

[66] But because I have no seal, I have caused the present truth to be fortified with the seal of my father the lord Gotbert. and corroborates it juridically in the year 1232, And these witnesses were present: Simon, Lord Cuno of Adelinchen, Reyner of Rolinchen advocate of Milen, and Christian advocate of St. Trudo, William Castellan of Montenaken, Nicholas of Curtis, Henry of Aelst, Reyner of Montenaken, Arnold of Gengeleym, Rulin of Milen, Damian Godscalcus of Diest, knights, the aldermen of St. Trudo, and the aldermen of Milen, and my father's men Henry of Musen, Jordan son of Tegno, Reyner the merchant, Robin of Lewys. Given on the vigil of Blessed Thomas the Apostle, in the year of the Lord 1232. I ask also that the present writing be perpetually corroborated with the seals of the princes."

[67] The fourth diploma follows, which has thus: "Arnold count of Loon, as also the fourth in the same year; to those present and to come, forever. The letters of the noble man Aegidius being inspected, concerning a certain sale which his father Gotbert, noble man of Brul, made with the prioress and convent of the nuns of St. Catherine concerning the court of Milen, and all its dependencies, and concerning the alms which the said Gotbert the noble bestowed on the aforesaid monastery for his own and his people's salvation, as is plain in his letters; since the same Aegidius the son has approved his father's deed as pleasing and ratified, we concur with pleasing assent. And that the things which are declared in the letters of both, namely of the father and of the son, that is, concerning the court of Milen and all its dependencies, and the bestowal of the alms, may have perpetual strength; we have caused the present page to be fortified with the impression of our seal. And whoever shall rashly attempt anything against the premises, shall know that he will incur our offense. Given on the second of the Kalends of February at St. Trudo, in the year of the Lord 1232."

[68] as also a fifth in the same year, given by John bishop of Liège: The fifth diploma is thus expressed: "John, by the grace of God bishop of Liège, to those present and to come who shall inspect these letters, greeting in the Lord. The beloved daughters, the nuns of St. Catherine in Milen, have exhibited to us the letters of the noble man Aegidius, containing that the same noble man holds pleasing and ratified the sale which his father Gotbert, noble man of Brul, had made with the prioress and convent of St. Catherine concerning the court of Milen, and all its dependencies conferred in alms, renouncing all disturbance henceforth. We therefore have thought that the said court, namely the place in which the aforesaid sisters are given over to the divine services, and all things conferred by the noble man Gotbert of Brul on the aforesaid monastery, as is plain in his letters, are to be confirmed by the present writing, strictly forbidding that any man henceforth presume to disturb the aforesaid, but that all things, being about to profit the uses of the handmaids of Christ, be preserved unimpaired. Given at St. Trudo on the second of the Kalends of February, in the year of the Lord 1232."

[69] and finally a sixth The tenor of the sixth diploma follows in these words: "I Godfrey lord of Perwez wish it to be known to all who shall inspect this writing, that I have conferred in alms on the prioress and convent of blessed Catherine of Milen, of the Order of blessed Benedict, all those goods which I acquired and had by the exchange of other goods before the count of Loon, who was the lord of those same goods, and by the sentence of the men of that count, from my uncle the lord Gotbert of Brul, and from the lord Aegidius his son of Herge, to be possessed peacefully forever, both in cultivated fields, and in meadows and woods, mill, toll, tax in wet and dry, with all the rights and customs by which hitherto the aforesaid convent has held those same goods, from when it first obtained them; which goods lie at Milen, in which those same ladies dwell.

[70] in the year 1242 But I confirm all the bestowals and letters conferred on the aforesaid ladies, whether by the count of Loon, or by my uncle and his son aforesaid, by these my present letters. At this bestowal there were present the venerable father B. formerly bishop of Lausanne [*], who received these goods with the lord Ch. abbot of St. Trudo on behalf of the prioress and convent of Milen for the use of those same ladies, at Milen in the cemetery, and the lord Cono of Here advocate of St. Trudo, the lord Gonther

of Berle, the lord Libert of Seline, the lord Fastrard of Berle, the lord Lambert of Aelst, the lord Hermann of Sassenbrouch, the lord Philip of Herck castellan of Montengeys, and his brother the lord Eustace, the lord Eustace of Bouchout castellan of Duras, the lord Libert Langheduech, Ruion of Gingelem, the lord Simon of Heldonia, the lord Nicholas of Cortis, the lord Henry of Sassenbrouch, and my aldermen of Musen, and very many other of my men.

[71] This bestowal being made before all the aforesaid, [of Godfrey of Perwez, an excommunication being inflicted on those who contravene it.] I asked before those same that the venerable father the bishop aforesaid should excommunicate all those, whoever henceforth should go against this my bestowal. Which he also did before me and all the aforesaid. Moreover, that this my bestowal may obtain perpetual strength, I asked the aforesaid bishop and abbot, and the lord Arnold count of Loon, that they should append their seals to the present page with my seal. Done and given on the vigil of blessed John the Baptist, in the year of grace one thousand two hundred forty-two." Done and copied in the year, day, month, and hour, and pontificate aforesaid, in the chamber of the dwelling-house of the discreet and honest man the lord Ghiselbert of Fossa, presbyter, and rural archdeacon in the council of St. Trudo, situated in the town of St. Trudo, there being present in the same place the aforesaid lord Ghiselbert, the lord John Smersnidere presbyter, and Eustace called of Nisem, clerk, witnesses of the diocese of Liège specially called and asked to testify to the premises.

[72] Thus it was subscribed: "And I Walter Egiot of St. Trudo, of the diocese of Liège, All which things, as authentic, are corroborated by public notaries. public notary by imperial authority and of the court of Liège, because I have seen, handled, read through, and examined the aforesaid letters, have faithfully copied them, a diligent collation being made together with the aforewritten witnesses, and have reduced them into this public form at the demand and request of the damsel Elisabeth de Mombeke aforesaid, and have signed them with my usual and accustomed sign, being asked and required… Walter, as above." And J. Bloys notary by copy, [and] Leon. Bollis notary by copy, substitute, subsign.

[*] Of Lausanne.

§ VII. Some observations concerning the aforesaid diplomas; why more concerning the Saint is not given.

The praised Fisen in the Flowers cited before, page 277, reports the prioresses of Milen and thereafter the abbesses, Certain persons the first of whom, as he adds, died in the year 1578. Concerning the priorate of that same cloister being changed into an abbey about the year 1565, it is said in the notes to the Supplement of Miraeus cited above. Furthermore, Arnold count of Loon, noted in the first diploma, brother and heir of Ludovicus, concerning whom the Life, is known from another diploma in favor of the abbey of Herkenrode in the year 1218, which is read in the said Supplement, page 846. In the sixth diploma given above, by the letters "Ch." is indicated Christian, designated abbot of St. Trudo in the year 1193, over which he presided for 30 years, from our manuscript Chronicle of Saint-Trond and Fisen; concerning whom the same Fisen, and concerning his body uncorrupted, treats in the second part of the Paralipomena to the Flowers of the Church of Liège; but the epoch of that abbot does not agree with the year of this diploma, into which an error could easily creep, so that "Ch." was wrongly written or transcribed for "Th.," which will be Thomas, set over the abbey of Saint-Trond in the year 1239, dead in 1248, from the cited Chronicle; concerning whom above.

[74] By "the venerable father B., formerly bishop of Lausanne" there indicated, I understand Boniface, Notes on those diplomas illustrated by us with the title of blessed on the 19th of February from page 149; where on page 154, in the annotations, it is said that this bishop received in the year 1247 the faculty of resigning the bishopric; which, according to this present diploma, that he had already resigned from the year 1242 is proved, since in it he is called "FORMERLY bishop of Lausanne." In Gallia Christiana in the Sainte-Marthes, among the bishops of Lausanne, he is placed as first brought to Lausanne in 1230; and after eight years to have gone to Rome, and there to have renounced his bishopric into the hands of the same Gregory Pope IX by whom he had been promoted. And in the first Life in us, chapter 4, it is narrated that he ruled that church for 10 years, which cohere with the epoch of our diploma. But from the same Life, chapter 2, bishop Boniface was present at the Council of Lyons, which was celebrated in the year 1245; and there are had there some things which prove that he even then still bore the bishopric, on what occasion he resigned which is there afterward set forth.

[75] are explained. That St. Boniface was present at the Council of Lyons, I find indicated neither in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium, nor in the Belgic Fasti of Miraeus, nor in the Sainte-Marthes even by a single word. According to the epoch of the aforesaid diploma, he could by no means have been present at it, before he resigned the bishopric. How rightly and truly that biographer decides otherwise, let him see for himself. I meanwhile, leaving that biographer, judge that one must stand by the diploma, until either against this, or for that, something be solidly proved, whence the matter can certainly be decided, and placed beyond controversy.

[76] The Saint prayed for [no miracles after death;] And these indeed are the things which, concerning our Belgian St. Christina, Marvelous far beyond all admirableness, the monuments could gather; few indeed, I confess, if you regard them apart from the Life, which instructs us copiously enough; few likewise, if you refer them to the Life itself, inasmuch as it scarcely touches anything which happened after the Saint's last death; but even in this she herself was plainly Marvelous: for that concerning miracles after her death—she who, while she lived, had been a perpetual miracle—there is almost nothing at hand, inasmuch as it is not to be sought except from this, that, by the testimony of the writer of the Life, number 52, "it is reported by some that she often in her life asked God that He would not honor her in death with any miracles … and in this also she was heard by the Lord."

[77] heretics raged against her monuments: and therefore more remains not to be said. To this is added that the continual wars, so often raging through Belgium, have grudged us a great treasure of things pertaining to the Saint, which, once preserved in the cloister of Milen, has now perished, as the Peter Diels praised above bears witness, who thus concludes the mentioned testimony: "There were," he says, "in the aforesaid monastery many particular manuscripts, concerning the Life and the marvelous effects of Christina the Marvelous; but those long ago perished during the past wars; so that the religious themselves have nothing particular any longer." All which things, both those just now said here, and the foregoing produced on the faith of that same testimony, are confirmed by these words: "Thus I attest, father Peter Diels, Minorite and confessor at Milen." Nothing ought now to delay us from subjoining the Life to these things.

THE LIFE

By the Author Thomas Cantipratensis, of the Order of Preachers.

From our parchment manuscript codex of La Cambre in Belgium near Brussels.

Christina, virgin, surnamed the Marvelous, at Saint-Trond in Belgium (St.)

BHL Number: 1746, 1747

By Thomas Cantipratensis.

PROLOGUE.

Disposing to write the life of the memorable virgin of Christ, Christina ^a, let us at the outset of our discourse first insert that which the venerable Jacques ^b, bishop of Acre ^c, afterward Cardinal of the Roman court ^d, The author, the deeds of the Saint, commemorates concerning that same Christina in the Life of blessed Marie of Oignies, by these words: "I saw," he says, "another (understand Christina ^e), concerning whom the Lord operated so marvelously, that, when she had lain dead for a long time, before her body was buried in the earth, her soul returning to the body [f,] she came to life again: and she obtained from the Lord that, living in the body in this world, she might sustain purgatory. Whence for a long time she was so marvelously afflicted by the Lord, that at one time she would roll herself in the fire; [and] at another time in winter she would stay long in the icy water: at another time also she was compelled to enter the sepulchers of the dead ^g. At length, her penance being accomplished in so great peace, ^h she merited so great grace from the Lord, that many times, rapt in spirit, she led the souls of the departed even into purgatory, or through purgatory ⁱ, without any harm to herself ^k, even to the supernal kingdoms."

[2] These things, therefore, as we said, the aforesaid venerable bishop Jacques commemorates concerning her. which seem incredible, But I, the unworthy Brother of the Order of Preachers, have described the rest, for the edification of the readers and especially for the praise of Christ, these things, though in unskilled speech, certain, at any rate, by the relation of the narrators. Nor would I undeservedly have called myself certain, since I have plainly as many witnesses in the several things which I have described, as at that time in the town of St. Trudo could use reason. For these things were not done in a corner, but plainly among the peoples; nor did so much time pass as absorbed and buried them in oblivion, since it is not more than eight years since ^l I wrote these things after her death. But the other things which no one of men could know except herself, I heard properly from those who testified that they had received them from her mouth.

[3] And let whoever reads these things know that I have believed such witnesses the author excellently confirms. as would in no way deviate from the center of truth even for the amputating of their heads. We confess indeed, and it is true, that our narration ^m exceeds all understanding of man, inasmuch as these things could by no means happen according to the course of nature, since nevertheless they are possible to the Creator; nor would I in any way have presumed to write them, unless the testimony of the venerable bishop Jacques in the greater events of the deeds had preceded me. Hence, therefore, setting about the work, let us first pursue in what manner she was nursed, afterward brought up, and thence her other deeds, as we have learned by most certain and indubitable relation.

ANNOTATIONS.

THE ANCIENT CHAPTERS.

Here begins the prologue to the Life of blessed Christina of the town of St. Trudo.

I. Here begins the Life of Blessed Christina surnamed the Marvelous.

II. How she died.

III. How she was drawn out of the body, and how, brought back to the body, she came to life again.

IV. How, taken by her friends, and freed by the Lord, she was nursed by her own virgin breast.

V. How she entered the waters.

VI. How she was tortured in the fire.

VII. How she was tortured in the waters.

VIII. How she was tortured on wheels and gibbets.

IX. How she was tortured on thorns and briars, and was driven by dogs.

X. Concerning the subtlety of her body.

XI. Of what sort she became while she prayed.

XII. How her leg being broken, she was taken and freed by the Lord.

XIII. How oil flowed from her breasts, and thus she was set free by her friends.

XIV. How a common prayer was made by the religious for her.

XV. How her life was tempered to be bearable to men.

XVI. How she was compelled by the spirit to live on alms.

XVII. Concerning him from whom she received drink.

XVIII. How it was with her when she ate the alms of evildoers; and concerning their food or dress.

XIX. Concerning her grief and lamentation which she had for the damned; and concerning her joy for the saved.

XX. How she was famous in the spirit of prophecy.

XXI. How she foretold a certain slaying.

XXII. How she foretold the apostasy of a nun.

XXIII. How she protected by her prayers a certain noble pilgrim.

XXIV. How she foretold that Jerusalem would be captured; and announced the day when it was taken.

XXV. How she foretold that the greatest famine was to come.

XXVII. How she reproached them that they did not acknowledge the Creator.

XXVIII. How she left her own things, and came to Loon.

XXIX. How she divinely understood the Scriptures.

XXX. How much she was venerated by count Ludovicus.

XXXI. What rousing words she had.

XXXII. How she foretold troubles to that same count.

XXXIII. What she did at the death of the said count.

XXXIV. How she shared the penalties of purgatory with the soul of the count.

XXXV. How she bore herself in the last year of her life.

XXXVI. The narration of the lord Thomas abbot of St. Trudo concerning her.

XXXVII. The manner of her life before death.

XXXVIII. Concerning her languor before death.

XXXIX. Concerning her second death, and how she came to life again, and a third time died.

XL. Concerning her burial and the translation of her body.

XLI. The conclusion of the book.

XLII. Concerning the second raising of her body.

XLIII. Concerning the first miracle which happened after the raising of the sacred body.

[*] Her (ejus).

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's birth; purgatory being seen after death, she returns to life, that she may help the souls detained there; how bitter things, her body being unharmed, she suffered for them.

Chapter I.

Therefore the memorable virgin of Christ, Christina, was sprung from the town of St. Trudo ^a in Hasbania, from honorable parents. She, her parents being dead, [The Saint's birth; her sisters; the vilest office of keeping cattle heaped by the Lord with celestial gifts.] was left with two sisters, herself the younger. Then the sisters, desiring to dispose their life according to the manner of the religious life, appoint the sister greater in age to give herself to prayer, the middle one to take the care of the house; but the younger, Christina, to keep the cattle going to pasture. And without delay: to her deputed to a cheaper and humbler office Christ was not lacking as consoler; nay rather He gave her the grace of inward sweetness, and visited her more often with celestial secrets. Yet she remained unknown to all, and to God alone the better known, the more secret. Whence by Isaiah she glories, saying: My secret to myself, my secret to myself. For He Himself is a modest lover.

II.

[5] And it came to pass after these things that, the strength of her body being weakened by the inward exercise of contemplation, The Saint dying, but recalled to life, she departed from life. Then her lifeless body, placed in the midst, was greatly lamented by her friends and sisters. When morning therefore came, she is carried to the church. And when for her deposition the oblation of the Masses was being made, suddenly the body, stirred, rose up in the bier, and at once, like a bird, borne aloft, ascended the beams of the church. All who were present therefore fleeing, the sister greater in age alone with fear remained, where persevering immovable until after the Mass, she was, being bound by the priest of the church by a sacrament, compelled to descend: for, as some conjecture, the subtlety of her spirit shuddered at the odor of human bodies ^f. Soon, having returned with her sisters, she was refreshed at home with food. Then her spiritual friends ^g, approaching her, inquired whether she would set forth what she had seen, or what she had suffered. To whom she

III.

[6] "Immediately," she said, "when I died, the ministers of light, angels of God, received my soul, narrates that she had seen the torments of purgatory and of hell, and led me into a certain dark and horrid place, full of the souls of men. The torments which I saw in that place were so great and so cruel that no tongue would suffice to speak these things. And I saw there many dead persons, whom I had formerly known in the flesh. But I, pitying not a little those wretched souls, asked of what kind was this place. But I thought this was hell. And my leaders answered me: 'Because this place is purgatory, in which penitent sinners pay the penalties of the sins committed in life.' Thence they led me to the torments of hell, and I recognized there also certain ones whom I had known living.

[7] After these things I was carried into paradise to the throne of the divine majesty. And when I saw the Lord rejoicing with me and congratulating me, [and the glory of heaven: and an option being offered to her, whether she would remain there, or return to life;] I rejoiced beyond all measure, thinking that I should from then remain perpetually with the Lord. And the Lord at once answered my desire. 'Truly,' He said, 'my sweetest one, here you shall be with Me; but now I propose to you the option of two things; either now to remain with Me; or to return to the body, and there to do the penances of an immortal soul through a mortal body without harm to itself, and to snatch, by your own penalties, all those souls whom you pitied in that place of purgatory: and that living men, by the example of your penalty and life, may be converted to Me, and recoil from their crimes, and, all things being accomplished, to return at last to Me, heaped with the reward of many rewards.' I answered without any hesitation that, under the condition proposed to me, I wished to return.

[8] Without delay, the Lord congratulating me on my answer, that she had chosen this last, that she might help the souls being purged. bids my soul be led back to the body. And see how swift the angels at the Lord's command. For at that very hour in which, in the Mass celebrated for me, was said the first Agnus Dei, who takest away the sins of the world, my soul stood at the throne of the divine majesty. But when the Agnus Dei was said the third time, I was by the swift angels restored to my body. Such was the manner of my return and of my going forth, and I was given back to life for the correction of men. Now therefore let not those things which you shall see in me disturb you, because those things which God will ordain with me are above understanding. For such things have not been seen among mortals." Her friends, hearing these things, marveled, and with amazement awaited the things which were to come.

IV.

[9] Therefore after these things, when Christina with a wondrous horror fled the presence of men into the deserts, into the trees, [She is thought to be possessed by a demon; she is bound with chains, but freed by God: hungering, she is nursed by her own milk.] onto the tops of towers or churches or of any lofty things whatever, thinking her full of demons, at length, with great labor, having caught her, they consigned her, bound, to iron chains: where, while she suffered many penalties and privations, but most of all in the odor of men, on a certain night, aided by the Lord, the chains and fetters being loosed, she escaped, and fled into the remote woods of the desert, and there in the trees lived after the manner of birds. And when she lacked food (for she could not, although her body was most subtle, [be] without sustenance) and was tormented by most grievous hunger, yet she was in no way willing to return, but to remain alone with the Lord in the secret of the desert. Pouring out, therefore, a prayer to the Lord, she asked, suppliant, that He would look upon her straits with the eyes of His mercy. And without delay: turning her eyes to herself, she sees the dry breasts of her virginal bosom, against the very laws of nature, drip the sweetness of milk. A wondrous thing, and, after the incomparable Virgin Mother of Christ, unheard-of in all ages ^k. Taking, therefore, the dripping liquor for food, for nine weeks she was nursed by her own breast of virginal milk. Meanwhile, therefore, sought by her own, she was found and seized, and, as before, consigned to iron chains; but in vain. [Refreshed by the body of Christ, she passes unharmed through the depths of the waters;]

[10] For, freed by the Lord, she came to the city of Liège ^l. Who, hungering for the most sacred flesh of the immaculate paschal Lamb, besought the presbyter of St. Christopher ^m that he would fortify her, straitened in many things, with the holy communion. And when the priest promised, but said that, being for the hour occupied, he could not, she, impatient of delay, came to the presbyter of another church, and asked for the body of Christ. Who soon, rising at the prayers of her praying, communicated her. And without delay: moved by a certain impulse, fleeing away, she went out of the city. The presbyter therefore, marveling at her fleeing, the other presbyter of St. Christopher running up, both pursued her even to the streams of the river Meuse. And rejoicing that they could seize her at the waters that met her, they perceive, stupefied, before them, in a true body, a woman as though phantasmal enter the deep whirlpools of the water, and by the other bank of the river come out free from the waters.

VI.

[11] Then Christina began to do those things for which she had been sent back by the Lord. she is burned, not consumed, by fire; And she entered the fire-vomiting ovens ⁿ, prepared for baking breads; and was tortured by the burnings like any of us; so that she cried out horribly for anguish: nor yet, in her body as she came out, did any injury appear outwardly.

Not having ovens, she threw herself into a copious fire in the houses of men: or she put in only her feet or hands, and held them so long that, unless it were a divine miracle, they could have been reduced to ashes. She also sometimes entered cauldrons full of boiling water up to her breasts, or up to her loins according to the height of the cauldrons, and upon the limbs which remained outside, free from the torment, she poured over the fervid water, and cried out as though in childbirth, nor yet, coming out, had she any injury.

VII.

[12] Under the waters of the river Meuse, in icy weather, she stayed frequently and for a long time, she is tortured in the waters in winter time, and is not harmed; so that she would remain in them six days and more. But the presbyter who had the care of her would come, and, standing on the bank of the river, would adjure her by the name of Christ; and then she, compelled, would return. In winter also she would go to stand erect under the wheel of a mill, so that the water flowed down through the middle of her head and her limbs. She would also come at times swimming with the water, and would fall with the water upon the circuit of the wheel, nor yet did any injury appear in her limbs.

VIII.

[13] On the wheels also, on which pirates were once accustomed to be tortured, the same happens on wheels and gibbets. she bent, after the manner of torturers, her legs and arms, and yet, when she came down, no fracture appeared in her limbs. She would also go to the gibbet, and hang herself by a noose among the robbers hanged, and there for one day or two she hung suspended. Very often also she entered the sepulchers of the dead, and there bewailed the sins of men.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

Marvels in the subtlety and figure of her body, her leg healed, her deliverance from captivity; oil flowing from her breasts. A more common manner of living; the fruit of the sacred communion; the commendation of alms; a prophecy.

IX.

[Of the dogs, which she stirred up against herself, she suffers blows, not injury. What happened to her in thorns and briars.] Even in the middle of the night she would sometimes rise, and, provoking the dogs of the whole city of St. Trudo to barking, she would run before like a fleeing beast, and the dogs would pursue her, and through the woods and dense thickets of thorns would drive her, so that no part of her body remained free from a blow, and yet, when she had washed off the blood, no vestige of injury appeared. This same thing she did by herself with thorns and briars, so that she seemed everywhere suffused with blood over her whole body. Whence many, who often saw this, marveled whence so great a quantity of blood abounded in one body. For besides those effusions of blood, she very often let much blood from a vein.

[15] Her body was of such subtlety and lightness, Her body was of wondrous subtlety, that she would walk on lofty and sublime things, and, like a sparrow, would hang on the most slender little branches of trees.

XI.

[16] When she wished to pray, she was compelled to flee to the tops of trees or towers or of any lofty things whatever, and of her condition at the time of prayer. that there, remote from all, she might find rest for her spirit. Again, when she prayed, and the divine grace of contemplation descended in her, like heated wax, all her limbs were drawn together into one ball, nor could there be discerned in them anything but a spherical body. And when, the spiritual inebriation being digested, her actual senses received the proper places of her limbs, her body, balled up like a hedgehog, returned to its form, and the limbs were extended which before had been enclosed under a shapeless mass. Upon the stakes of hedges also she would frequently stand erect, and there chant the course of the Psalms: for it was exceedingly grievous to her meanwhile to touch the earth.

XII.

[17] For these and things of this kind her sisters and friends, blushing not a little, Her leg being broken because men reckoned her full of demons, engage a certain most wicked and very strong man, who, a fee being received, should pursue her and catch her, and consign her to iron chains. And when that wicked one pursued her through the deserts, and could not catch her with his hands, at length, once touching her, he broke her leg with a club. Which being carried home, her sisters hire a physician for a fee, who should bestow care on her broken leg. She was therefore brought to Liège in a cart.

[18] she is healed by God; and, taken captive, is marvelously freed. But the physician, aware of her strength, enclosed her, bound strongly with chains on every side in a fortified cellar and tied to a column, the doors being barred. And when he bound and fomented her leg with medicinal bandages, the physician withdrawing, she pulled off what had been applied, deeming it unworthy that another physician be applied to her blows besides our Savior Jesus Christ. Nor did the Almighty deceive her. For on a certain night, when the spirit of the divinity had rushed upon her, the chains with which she was bound being loosed, healed of all discomfort, she walked through the floor of the cellar dancing, praising and blessing Him for whom alone she had chosen to die and to live. Her spirit therefore, feeling itself constrained by the enclosures of the cellar, a stone being seized from the floor of the cellar, in a vehement spirit made the wall passable; and, to use an example, as an arrow, which the more strongly it is drawn in the bow, so much the more robustly is it shot, so her spirit, constrained beyond what was just (because Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty), with the very body of fleshly mass, is reported to have flown through the void of the air like a bird.

XIII.

[19] Nor yet did her sisters and friends thus cease from her persecution: for when they could seize her, returned, they bound her strongly with chains to a certain wooden frame ^e. Nourished and healed by oil flowing from her breasts. And she was fed, like a dog, with a little bread and water only. That therefore Christ might show in her the pre-eminent miracle of His power, He suffered her to be overcome and afflicted for a time. By the hardness therefore of the wood her buttocks, worn away, and shoulders began to rot, and, wasting with the pain of these, she could not eat her bread. No one therefore having compassion on her miseries, the Lord marvelously pitied her: and He accomplished in her that signal miracle, unheard-of in all past ages ^f. For her virginal breasts began to flow with a liquor of most clear oil. Which she, taking for the seasoning of the dry bread, had for a broth, and for an ointment; and she anointed with it the wounds of her rotting limbs. Which when her sisters and friends saw, they began to weep, and, no longer resisting the divine will in Christina's miracles, they loosed her from the chains, and, prostrate, asking pardon for the injury, dismissed her free.

XIV.

[20] Then, using her liberty for what was lawful or pleasing, she did the penances for the sins of men, according to what was said above. By the prayers of the pious to God And when many, to see the marvels of God in Christina, from near and far and the remotest regions daily assembled, the religious men and women who were in the aforesaid town, shuddering lest the supreme admiration of the marvels should exceed the human sense, and lest the bestial minds of men should turn the divine deeds into a malign working, especially in this, that, fleeing the presence of men, she would ascend all lofty things like a bird, and in the waters would stay long like a fish, asked the Lord with diligent prayers that He would temper His miracles in Christina according to the common state of men. Nor did the Lord spurn the prayers of the piously weeping.

XV.

[21] For it came to pass on a certain day, that, agitated most vehemently by the spirit, she fled to a certain church in the village which is called Gulleir ^g, her manner of living is tempered [to be bearable to men.] and, the sacred font of baptism being found open, she plunged herself wholly into it. Which being done, she is said thereby to have obtained this, that from then the manner of her life was more tempered to men, and afterward she was more quiet, and could better bear the odors of men, and dwell among men.

XVI.

[22] The Sacrament of the Lord's body and blood she frequently, and especially on Sundays, received in holy devotion, She is helped in body and spirit by the sacred communion: she begs her food: and received in it strength of body, as she said, and

the greatest gladness of spirit. Therefore she could use nothing of those things which she had left as her own for Christ, or which ought to belong to her by hereditary right, for food or drink, but only the common alms of men, which she daily begged from door to door, that she might bear the sins of those by whose alms she was fed. But she said that for this cause she was compelled by the Spirit of God to beg the alms of wicked men, that through these they might be called to the horror of their sins and to penance of life. For she said that by nothing was God more bent to mercy toward sinners, than when sinners were moved with mercy toward their neighbors. Whence that saying of the wise man ^h: "Never could mercy, never could piety, close the last day otherwise than in good." And that these things may be plain by example, let us confirm them by a certain deed of Christina, which we have mentioned.

XVII.

[23] It happened that on a certain day, being divinely roused to an intolerable thirst, she foretells the conversion of a wicked man, from whom she had received drink. she ran to the table of a certain most wicked man splendidly feasting, and, asking for drink, she took a little wine to drink from him, moved by an unwonted piety. Wherefore Christina said, against the opinion of all who knew the man, that he had, in his death, been called to the pardon of penance and contrition ⁱ.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

She is grievously affected by the alms of the unjust; her food and clothing; her feeling for the damned and the saved; her scrutinizing of hearts; various predictions; ecstasy, etc.

XVIII.

This was the cause, as we said, for which she was compelled to beg the alms of publicans ^a. The Saint is most disgusted by alms acquired by the givers against justice: And yet when she ate something unjustly acquired, and given to her in alms, it seemed to her that she was swallowing the entrails of frogs and toads or the intestines of serpents. Whence in the eating of such things she cried out as though in childbirth: "O Christ, what dost Thou do with me? Why dost Thou thus torment me?" And beating her breast and body, she said: "O wretched soul, what dost thou desire? Why dost thou covet these horrid things? Why dost thou feed on these filths?" This therefore was a torment to her, when she ate something unjustly acquired. Nor yet was she tortured with a lesser penalty, when some wicked man denied her something asked of him. It happened at times that she took by force something denied by an impious man, saying: "Even though now you will not; yet afterward you will not grieve at what is taken away, and then it will profit you, which now does not profit."

[25] When she lacked a sleeve in her tunic or a hood in her scapular, she uses the vilest food and clothing: having someone in her way, from whom, being inwardly admonished by the spirit, she ought to receive this, she would ask him. And if he gave it, she gave thanks: but if not, she took away what was denied from the unwilling one, and sewed it to her own garments. Nor did she blush if the sleeves were confused, in one tunic unequal in color. Her garments were a white tunic, and a white scapular, covering the whole body down to the feet, and frequently not sewn with other threads except of the bark of the linden tree, or with willow twigs, or with little wooden pins. She lacked footwear, walking with bare feet at indiscriminate seasons. She used vile and abject foods for banquets, and the washings of dishes, which ought to have been thrown away, she boiled with water added, and this, with bran bread and too hard, yet first softened in water, she took for food. On these, with a fast continued for two or usually three days, she fed.

XIX.

[26] Honors and glory she fled with the utmost zeal; and she said that for such things especially those were tortured in hell or purgatory [knowing the merits of men, she pursues the damned with grief, the saved with joy;] to whom Christ had given in life the acknowledgment of His truth. She walked always as though dying and mourning: inasmuch as God daily revealed to her the merits of the dying, either to salvation or to destruction. When someone in the city had died, whom by the spirit she had known to be damned for his fault, she wept, and tortured and re-tortured herself, and bent herself and bowed down, and bent back her arms and fingers, as if, being without bones, they were flexible in their softness. But her very grief was intolerable to all who saw it, so that no hardness of men could sustain it without the greatest contrition and compassion of oneself. But for those who departed to be saved, she leaped up with such dancing, that it was in a wondrous manner marvelous that she lived in so great joyfulness. Whence those who knew the power of her spirit could easily perceive, in her joy or grief, what was to befall the dying in the city.

[27] Most willingly and most kindly she assisted the dying, exhorting them to the confession of their sins, [rejoicing also to be present to the dying, that she might prepare them for a blessed death.] and to the fruit of penance, to the hope of perennial joy, and to the horror of the destructive fire. Nor did she do this only for dying Christians, but even for Jews, whose congregation in the city was very great, being solicitous with wondrous compassion. But she reported Christ the Lord to be most merciful; toward those, however, who wished to be converted to Him; and that He very unwillingly took vengeance on the sins of men, and that He was saddened as often as He was compelled to do this, the sins of men demanding it: but that He diligently sought occasions by which He might give salvation to the wretched. And she was suffused with a wondrous grace of countenance when she said this concerning Christ the Lord.

[28] But she reported that there was a place near the nether regions appointed by God for the purgation of those She affirms that purgatory will be hard for those converted at the end of life; who were defiled with monstrous crimes, yet had been contrite at the last. This place she reported to be so horrid with tortures, that it had no distance from the torments of hell, except that those who were vexed in these torments sighed with hope of pardon. She said that demons presided over these in the torture, and that they, delivered to the demons for torment, were tortured by them the more bitterly, the more they know that they have in these shorter times of torturing.

XX & XXI.

[29] In the spirit of prophecy she was famous in many things, she forewarned many to salvation, she is famous in the spirit of prophecy; she reproves hidden crimes, she reproved many in secret concerning secret and hidden crimes, and recalled them to penance. When that miserable encounter took place in the year of the Lord 1213 in the month of October d between the duke of Brabant ^e and his adversaries ^f, where in the place which is called Steps ^g so many hundreds of men were slain ^h, that same Blessed woman on that same day cried out as though in childbirth and said: "Alas, alas! I see the air full of swords and blood. Run, sisters, run; ask the Lord: pour out tears, lest He restrain in anger His mercies." And to a certain nun in that very monastery of St. Catherine near the town of St. Trudo i she said: "Run, daughter, run to prayer swiftly, and ask the Lord for your father, because he is now placed in the greatest peril."

XXII.

[30] But when a certain nun of that monastery was contemplating departure, as by examples, concerning her Christina said: "O empty vessel! about to profit for the greatest scandal of the monastery." Nor was it long after, when, according to Christina's word, she apostatized from the Order, and by her incontinence caused the greatest scandal to the monastery. And when the convent of the monastery was exceedingly difficult about receiving that same nun returning to penance, Christina reproved the convent, saying: "Although you reckon her perdition as little, yet not so little did her soul cost Christ, who, pouring out His blood for her, deigned to die." Nor did Christina cease repeating these things, until the penitent nun was received ^l.

XXIII.

[31] There was a certain nobleman setting out beyond the sea to the sepulcher of the Lord. her spirit especially Christina was asked and adjured by the wife of the said nobleman, that she would by her prayer bring him back safe and sound. Christina, deeming his adjuration grievous, yet offered many prayers, labors, and vows for the soldier to the Lord, and brought him back sound, and said to his wife, as though vexed: "Behold, by the importunity of your adjuration I have brought your husband back sound; but know now, that yet you will not long rejoice in his presence." Whose word not long after appeared true; when, a few days having elapsed, that nobleman departed from this life, and left his wife and sons in desolation and sadness.

XXIV.

[32] But also much before the time she foretold that the holy land of Jerusalem would be subjected to the impious Saracens. she is shown to be prophetic And when the day had come on which Jerusalem was taken by Solahadin ^m, king of the Persians ⁿ, ^o together with the sepulcher of the Lord and the Cross of Christ [p], she herself, placed in the castle of Loon [q], knew the event of the matter in spirit. In which deed vehemently exulting, she was asked by those present to explain the cause of so great exultation. "Rightly," she said, "do I exult, because Christ the Lord today, exulting joyful with the angels, has given an occasion by which the multitude of the human race may be saved."

[33] with very clear [signs proving it,] And when those present asked what was the occasion; "Know," she said, "that the holy land is today delivered into the hands of the impious, and that a great occasion of salvation is thereby given: for Christ counts His own reproach a worthy thing, that the land be delivered to disgrace, though consecrated by the presence of His passion, yet destined to perish with the world at the end of the world, since by its recovery souls destined to remain forever, and redeemed by His blood, will be converted from the way of impiety to the way of justice; and men will shed blood in the business of the Holy Land, and will repay to Christ, in great devotion, the return of His death." Then all who were present, marveling, some of them note the time, and find the same day, namely after the time in which, the intervening journey being traversed, the report could reach those beyond the sea [r].

XXV.

[34] She also foretold, a long time before, the greatest famine, which was about the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1170 [s]. Also

very many other things, which are now fulfilled, and which we believe are to be fulfilled, Christina foretold [t].

XXVI.

[35] Furthermore, since she was very familiar with the nuns of St. Catherine outside the town of St. Trudo: and when sitting with them she sometimes spoke concerning Christ, Rapt into ecstasy suddenly and unexpectedly she was rapt by the spirit, and her body, like a top of playing boys, was whirled in a spinning, so that from the excessive vehemence of the whirling no form of the limbs could be discerned in her body. And when she had thus been whirled for a longer time, as if the vehemence were failing, she rested with all her limbs; and there sounded thereupon, between her throat and breast, a certain wondrous harmony, which no mortal could either understand, or imitate by any arts. That song of hers had only the flexibility of music and the tones: but the words of the melody, so to say, if yet they can be called words, sounded incomprehensibly. Meanwhile no voice or spiritual breath went out from her mouth or nose, but between the breast and throat alone the harmony of an angelic voice resounded.

[36] Meanwhile, all her limbs resting, the eyelids of [her] eyes were closed like those of the sleeping. she utters a marvelous song, Then, after some intervals, returning a little to herself, as though drunk, and truly drunk, she rose up: she cried out, vociferating: "Bring me the convent, that we may praise together Jesus of the highest kindness in His marvels." Soon, the convent flocking together from all sides (for it greatly rejoiced in Christina's consolation), she would begin, Te Deum laudamus; and, all following, she would finish [u]. But afterward, when she had fully returned to herself, and, others reciting it, recognized what she had done, and how she had invited the convent to the praise of Christ, out of shame and blushing she fled, or if she was detained by force by anyone, she wasted away with excessive grief; and declared herself foolish and silly.

XXVII.

[37] But she said sometimes, having returned to herself from the aforesaid state, in great bitterness of heart: she reproaches the world, that it does not acknowledge the Creator. "O wretched and miserable world, not acknowledging its Maker! Why do you not serve Him? Why do you not consider the longanimity of His patience? If you saw His goodness, even from another, though the world contradicted, you could not be turned away but that you would love Him. But you are turned away, O miserable world; you have closed your eyes, and would not understand." Saying these things, she cried out as though in childbirth, and twisted her limbs, and rolled on the ground with the greatest wailing, repeating why the world did not acknowledge its Creator.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER IV.

The Saint's withdrawal to Iveta the recluse; her song and knowledge of the Scriptures; her esteem with the count of Loon; concerning whom, having deserved well of him while he lived, after his death the Saint shares in herself the penalties of purgatory; her love of solitude.

XXVIII.

After these things, having departed from her own home and kindred, she sought the castle on the border of Germany which is called Loon ^a: where, making a stay for nine years with a certain recluse of most religious life, Iveta ^b by name, [Deserting her own, she dwells with a recluse; from whom the author of the Life learned very many things.] the Lord wrought marvels through her. From which recluse I received, revealed, many things which I have written concerning Christina: for from the far-off parts of the Gauls I came to her on account of this.

XXIX.

[39] Therefore in that same place, every night Christina frequenting the vigils of Matins, all withdrawing from the church, With a most sweet faculty of singing and the doors being barred, walking through the floor of the church pavement, she uttered a song of such sweetness that it seemed rather an angelic than a human song. That song was so wonderful to hear, that it excelled the instruments of all musicians, the voices of all mortals; yet less, and far unequal in sweetness to the jubilation of that harmony which, when she went out of her mind, resounded incomparable between her throat and breast. That song, I say, was Latin, and adorned with wondrous clauses of consonants ^c.

[40] But she herself understood all Latinity, and knew most fully the sense in the divine Scripture, and she is endowed by God with wondrous knowledge in the divine Scriptures; although she herself from birth was utterly ignorant of letters, and their most obscure questions she, when she was asked, unfolded most clearly to certain spiritual friends. Yet most unwillingly and most rarely did she wish to do it; saying that to expound the holy Scriptures was proper to the clergy, and that a ministry of this kind did not belong to her. The clergy, and especially the priests, on account of her excessive love of Christ, she venerated in a wondrous manner, although in turn she suffered many injuries from them. Sinning priests or clerics she admonished, more secretly and with wondrous reverence, sweetly, as though her own fathers, that they should not blaspheme the good name of Christ among the peoples by their excesses.

XXX.

[41] Whose sanctity the most noble man Ludovicus, namely count of Loon, knowing by celebrated fame, She is wholly loved by Ludovicus count of Loon: began to love her from the heart, and sincerely to cling to her counsels and colloquies. Wherever he had seen her, he rose up, and ran to meet her, and called her mother. But when the same count had done anything against justice, or the church of Christ or its ministers, she, as a mother for a son, grieved for him. And approaching him, standing in the palace, she reproved him with maternal confidence, and obtained from him whatever he ought to do for satisfaction and justice.

XXXI.

[42] And indeed, when the same Ludovicus the count on a certain day lay reclining in the courtyard of the church, surrounded by many a soldier, whom she rouses to the love of God, she, coming upon [him], secretly stood over the count's head. Who, with eyes and hands lifted up, began to say with wondrous grace of countenance: "O how fair Thou art, O Lord!" Which the soldiers hearing said to the count: "Do you hear, lord count, how this holy woman praises you?" And the count: "I know," he said, "whom she praises. It is not I, but she praises her celestial Lord, who is the creator of beauties, and the fairest of all." Then she: "Truly," she said, "you have spoken. You therefore, why do you not love Him?"

XXXII.

[43] The same count at some time in his palace at Loon, which now is destroyed ^e, and reveals to him a feigned traitor: with the duke of Limburg, and with another count, at the noon hour in summer lay upon a cushion, conversing. To whose colloquy Christina, constantly running up, cries out to count Ludovicus: "O most wretched one, with whom do you now hold colloquy? Behold, one deals with you as a friend, who, an enemy, already applies his hand about to betray [you]." Soon that traitor, shuddering at the woman's voice, for the hour kept silence, and, dissembling the truth in words, the outcome of the event approved [it].

XXXIII.

[44] This same count Ludovicus, when he was in his last

[whose soul, holy while she yet lived, she saw delivered to the gravest penalties of purgatory,] extremity, caused Christina to be called to him, most earnestly asking her that she would remain with him until the hour of his death. She favoring [him] more kindly, the count bids all who were with him withdraw from the chamber; but Christina alone he retained with him in the room. And without delay: the count, with what strength he could, raised himself, and, become suppliant before Christina's feet with his whole body, recited to her all his sins from the eleventh year of his age to that day, with the greatest tears: and this not for indulgence, which she could not give, but that she might the more be moved to pray for him by this atonement. After these things the count caused all his own to be called into the chamber, and, disposing his affairs according to Christina's counsel, he died ^f. And she saw his soul delivered to purgatory, to be tortured with the sharpest penalties.

XXXIV.

[45] Whom the pious Woman, pitying not a little, obtained from the Lord that she might share with him the torments to be paid in purgatory. Namely, when he had appeared to her after death, about to ask help, she obtains from God that she may transfer half of them into herself. Christina said to him: "Go now, and depart hence, and according to the divine judgment pay the penalties for your sins: but I, about to pay the torments in my body, take upon myself half of your purgatory ^g." These things being thus done, you would see Christina, for a long time afterward, in the nocturnal hours tortured by flaming vapors but at times by the colds of frosts h; and certain it is, that, according as the soul of the count was tortured with alternating torments. The places also in which the said count was accustomed to sin, she watered with irremediable tears, and those things in which he had vainly rejoiced, she grieved over.

XXXV.

[46] In the last year of her life solitude and the desert were frequently her dwelling; and she returned, [Toward the end of her life most loving of solitude, she appears like a shadow among men.] though most rarely, when she was compelled by the spirit to the salvation of men, or to take food. No mortal could restrain her at that time, when she panted to pass over to the deserts. When she returned, no one dared to greet her, no one to ask anything. For in the evening, sometimes returning, she passed through the middle of the house like a spirit over the earth: and it could scarcely be discerned whether a spirit passed or a body, since she scarcely seemed to touch the earth. For to such a degree, in that last year of her life, in almost all parts the spirit had so possessed her animal body, that human minds or eyes could scarcely gaze upon the shadow of her body without horror and trembling of spirit. But having then returned to the town of St. Trudo, she more often stayed in the monastery of St. Catherine.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER V.

Her life such as it was next before death; her languor; her death met a second and a third time; her burial; translation; the author's exhortation; the elevation of the body; a miracle.

XXXVI.

The aforementioned venerable Thomas ^a, now abbot of St. Trudo, The abbot of Saint-Trond narrates to the author of the Life, but then presbyter of the city, narrated to me a certain thing concerning Christina most worthy of recitation. He himself in the dawn of the day was returning home from Matins with a companion; and, behold, she, passing with an impulse, entered the church. Whom, having secretly followed, they, behind a column of the church, more secretly observed what she did or prayed. And without delay, she threw herself before the altar like a sack full of dry bones. Then, groaning heavily and frequently, she began to beat with her fists her breast and body, saying: "O wretched and miserable body! how long will you torture wretched me? What do you do with me? What profits you to detain the wretched soul so long? How long will you delay me from the sight of Christ? When will you forsake me, that the soul may return free to its Creator? Woe to you, most wretched, and woe to me, who am joined to you!"

[48] The Saint, amid the alternating dialogues between soul and body, Saying these and things of this kind, she beat her body. Then again, assuming the person of the body, she said, as it were to the spirit: "O wretched soul! why thus do you torture me? What holds you in me, and what delights you from me? Why do you not permit me to return to the earth, whence I was taken, and to rest, until I be restored to you on the day of the last judgment? Why do you not go to your rest, that you may enjoy better things in the supernal regions?" Saying these things she sighed, and panted and wept. And without delay; resting a little in silence, and, by holy thought toward God, growing more sincerely warm, she was resolved into a most sweet laughter, and, taking up her feet with both hands, with the greatest affection she kissed the soles of them, and said: "O sweetest body! why did I beat you? Why did I heap reproaches on you? Did you not obey me in every good work which, God being the author, I set about to do? You bore the torments, you bore the labors, most kindly and most patiently, which the spirit imposed."

[49] was steeped with joy, and marvelously affected. Again repeating her kisses, she said: "Now patiently bear up, O my best and sweetest body. Now the end of your labor is at hand; now, resting in the dust, you shall slumber a little, and then at last, the trumpet sounding, all corruptibility being laid aside, you shall rise again, and shall be joined to the soul in perpetual joy, whom in the present you had as a companion of sadness." Soothing her body with such words and kisses, after an hour she uttered that marvelous jubilation which we mentioned before: and she was so filled inwardly with joyfulness, that she was believed to be bursting outwardly in her body. Truly wonderful is God in His Saints, and in that woman, so to say, marvelous beyond all admiration.

XXXVII.

[50] With food, in the last time of her life, she fed very rarely and sparingly. To sit for colloquy with the sisters and religious, as before she had been accustomed, what manner of life she held before death: she bewails the sins of men: she was unwilling, but, tasting a little, and refreshed with sleep for a few moments, before the middle of the night she passed over to the deserts. Never in those days did anyone see a laugh from her mouth, but she was like one who has been made mad by excessive grief. Praying, lamenting, she walked, and mourning. And this, therefore, as is believed by some, because the Lord revealed to her, more than usual, concerning the state of the world and its malice. There was one thing which she often bewailed with wondrous wailing, that almost the whole human race was corrupted in the effusions of seeds, and that on account of this the wrath of God, by vengeance, was more quickly impending over almost all Christianity.

XXXVIII.

[51] But the time drawing near in which she was to be detained by the languor of death, she obtained so assiduous a grace of contemplation, she languishes, that it was very grievous to her to direct the edge of her mind elsewhere. At last, therefore, resting from all things, she kindly asked a certain Beatrix ^b, a nun of St. Catherine, that she would secretly prepare a bed for her in the chamber, because the infirmity of languor was impending over her. She readily doing what she asked, she herself lay down, and, the disease growing heavier, was exercised. And when for three weeks she had been detained by languor, she asked for the communion of the Lord's body, and the oil of unction. Which being done, she whom I mentioned before, Beatrix, rolled on her knees before her, asked that she would certify her in certain matters, before she departed from life. And when she Christina was silent, thinking her intent elsewhere, she deferred the question, and, going out of the chamber to do something, meanwhile left her alone.

XXXIX.

[52] Therefore it is reported by some, that she often in life asked the Lord that He would not honor her in death with any miracles, she dies; but would permit her to die by the common death of men, and in this also she was heard by the Lord: for the said Beatrix, before she returned, Christ calling, Christina breathed out her spirit. And without delay, Beatrix, having returned with a certain sister, found on the ground the lifeless body, prostrate after the manner of the dead, and truly, I believe, by the ministry of angels. Then Beatrix, acting more impatiently, rushed upon the body of the dead woman, crying out over the body of the dead woman, and wailing vehemently. And when, amid her crying, she often asked the dead woman why, without leave, why, without the commendation of the sisters, she had departed to the Lord, at length, in a vehement spirit, confidence being conceived, with fixed countenance on the face of the dead woman, she said: "O Christina! you were always obedient to me in life; I adjure therefore now, and I conjure you by the Lord Jesus Christ, whom in life you loved with ardent desire, that you obey me even now: for, being powerful, you can through Him to whom you are now joined, whatever you will, and return to life, and tell me what I asked of you with great desire to be disclosed in life."

[53] A wondrous thing! Soon, when Beatrix cried this into the dead ears; Christina, returned to the body, uttered a heavy sigh: and, with anxious countenance beating back the one recalling her, said: but again returns to life for a while; and a little after a third time expires. "O Beatrix! why have you disquieted me? Why have you recalled me? Now I was being led to be presented to the sight

of Christ; but now, my sister, what you wish, ask hastily, and let me, I beseech, return to the things desired by the Lord." Then Beatrix, asking what she proposed, received an answer from her. Meanwhile, the sisters of the monastery being gathered from all sides, signing them with the sign of the cross and a word, she experienced death a third time, and a third time ^d died, and thus passed over to the immortal ages of ages.

XL.

[54] But she lived, after she first rose again from the dead, The duration of her life; the year of her death; her burial forty-two years, and died about the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1224. She was buried outside the town of St. Trudo in the monastery of St. Catherine, and rested there seven years, until the time, namely, in which they translated the whole edifice of the monastery to a more suitable and nearer place. Then, all the citizens being gathered, the clergy and the convent of nuns approached the tomb of the blessed and reverend Christina. Which, when they had opened it, the cover being removed from above, so great a grace of sweetness occupied all universally and singularly, that all with one mind, [and] with one mouth alike cried out together that Christina had been marvelous in life, and after death nonetheless glorious. For no one doubts that the grace of healings was conferred on those who with due faith approached her tomb. But we are not able to pursue such things.

XLI.

[55] See therefore, reader, to how great penalties we are liable, who see Christina to have borne so many torments, so many penalties, not for herself but for her neighbors: The author concludes, and we shrink from doing penance for ourselves and our excesses. There will certainly come a day, it will come, and will not delay, when we would gladly attempt to undertake greater things than these, if a place of penance were given to those asking, and it were permitted to return to the times once neglected. And woe to those who wish then to buy the oil of mercy, when the time of the market has passed by: and therefore with empty lamp they will knock at the door, and will obtain no entrance: nay rather it will be said to them: Amen I say to you, I know you not. Watch therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour.

[56] exhorting the reader to penance by the example of St. Christina. By a necessary argument, therefore, it is concluded to be the fault of the sleeper, when, neglecting the day and the hour, he was unwilling, with lamp full of the oil of good works from worthy fruits of penance, to watch. Watch therefore: because you know not the day nor the hour in which your Lord is to come. And what else in all her life did Christina cry out, but to do penance, and that men should be ready at every hour? This by many words, this by weepings, this by wailings, this by infinite cries, this by the example of her life she taught more, she cried out more, than we have perceived of any of the preceding or following Saints by writing or relation, to the praise and glory of Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God: through all ages of ages. Amen ^g.

XLII.

[57] But it happened after these things, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1249, that on a certain day, very early in the morning, at the gate a woman, as it seemed, aged in body and whitened in habit, knocked. Being admitted, therefore, she asked for a monk and priest ^h. [The nuns of Milen, divinely admonished concerning the elevation of the Saint's body,] To whom, when she had been brought, she said to him: "I am sent by divine revelation, to announce to you that you should raise from its place the body of a certain most holy woman, Christina by name, placed under neglect. And if you do this, by her merits and prayers this place will obtain grace and glory: but if you neglect it, you will incur the offense of the divine Power." And when the monk asked her that she should rather say these things to the prioress of the monastery and the convent, she was silent.

[58] And without delay, the monk running to bring the prioress with the convent, they transfer it to a more fitting place: returning, did not find the said person. Hastening therefore, he ran through various ways, and sent others, nor found anyone who had seen her departing or remaining. But that she entered the gate several testified they had seen, and not unfittingly. For neither did the angel Raphael judge the celestial secrets to be revealed to the multitude, but to Tobias alone with his son. And in this way we here perceive it to have happened not without reason. The convent, hearing these things, and fearing lest, as was said above, it should incur the offense of the divine Power, with haste and joy, taking the sacred bones from the tomb, washed diligently and dried, placed them near the altar in a celebrated place.

XLIII.

[59] And without delay, after the body of the marvelous Christina was raised from the tomb, a certain woman in the neighborhood of the monastery, for a long time so languid, a miracle soon following this translation. and utterly destitute of her limbs, lay so that she could not rise from the bed, even if the house had burned. The report of so great a matter therefore rousing her more confidently, she begs her husband that she be carried to the monastery. Who, impelled by the woman's tears, placed her on a vehicle, which they commonly call a herb-cart, and led her to the monastery. Thence carried by hands to the tomb, restored in all her limbs she rose up, and, blessing God and His spouse Christina, walked back to her home by her own strength.

ANNOTATIONS.