ON ST. MARTHA THE VIRGIN,
HOSTESS OF CHRIST THE SAVIOR,
AT TARASCON IN PROVENCE.
Section I.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Martha, Virgin, hostess of Christ, at Tarascon in Provence (St.)
BHL Number: 5549
BY J. B. S.
§ I. Her cult, from the sacred Calendars and other monuments of veneration.
After those matters which were discussed at sufficient length in the Commentary on St. Mary Magdalene at the 22nd of July, and which are common to both sisters—both concerning the day of their cult and concerning their burial in Provence—there remain here to be weighed, only more briefly, those things alone which pertain to St. Martha on this 29th of July. The particular cult of this saint But that you may understand these matters more clearly, one must first consult §9 of the aforesaid Magdalene Commentary, and then our observation on the Martyrology of Usuard at the 17th of December, where the things which are intimated by the Little Roman Martyrology concerning the memory of St. Lazarus and St. Martha in Bethany are to be understood, you should remember, in that sense which we have more fully explained in their proper places; for everywhere the same argument holds in favor of the prevailing tradition of the people of Provence concerning the ancestral possession of those sacred bodies. As for the diversity of the days assigned both to the brother and to the sisters, we consider it to have been sufficiently accounted for, since we have endeavored to restore, from more approved monuments, the corrupted announcements of the Hieronymian and other Martyrologies, from which alterations crept into the ecclesiastical Offices. Here our discourse shall be of St. Martha alone, taking our beginning from an account of the city or town where she is to this day honored with a most celebrated cult.
[2] Tarascon in Provence Among the various sacred monuments of Provence which our Father Charles Faber—often praised on that account in this work—once furnished to our predecessors, not the least is a manuscript, found in the treasury of our papers, and taken by him from the large codex of Dom Henri de Suarez, in which, among other things, a Life of St. Martha was contained, prefaced by a brief description of the place of which there will be discourse below here. Understand Tarascon, thus depicted by him: "Tarascon, a city of Provence, on the left bank of the Rhône, by which, lying between, it is separated from Beaucaire in Languedoc, an ancient city on the borders of the Cavares; for Strabo notes it as the last of their towns. With a soil equally fertile and pleasant, it is a Viguerie (understand a vicariate or territory) among the chief of all Provence. Some have thought that it took its name from a dreadful dragon that infested the region, commonly surnamed Tarusca. But others more prudently prove the antiquity of the city from Strabo, who published his Geographical work before the times of Christ. It lies about midway between Avignon and Arles, at a distance of four leagues. Ptolemy mentions it in book 2, chapter 10, calling it Tarascon. It is under the parlement of Aix and in the diocese of Avignon."
[3] These things being premised, as concerns now separately St. Martha, the most singular patroness of the people of Tarascon, she was of old celebrated on this day I confess it is not yet clear to me at what time precisely—from the 17th of October or the 17th of December, on which days we observed her marked by the Little Roman Martyrology and by Ado in the cited Commentary at no. 99—she was, I say, drawn back from those places to this 29th of July. If I rightly gather, from those codices of Usuard in which I have found her consistently recorded on this day—namely the Anchin, the Louvain, the Brussels, the Florentine, and others—it seems it may safely be judged that at least before the thirteenth century she was celebrated with today's solemnity, since we have shown elsewhere that those codices were not much later than that age. Certainly the codex which Belinus used when he prepared his first edition at Venice in the year 1498 must also be ancient, in which she is most expressly announced in these words: "Likewise on the same day the feast of St. Martha the virgin, sister of St. Mary Magdalene and of Lazarus." I do not here adduce the Greek Calendars, for the namesakes—by which, in the Menology of Sirletus at the 4th of June, and in the Menaea at the 8th of February, she is marked as a martyr together with her sister Mary—do not pertain to this matter at all, as has also been shown elsewhere.
[4] St. Martha is therefore venerated on this day throughout the whole Catholic Church, as widely as it extends, wherever the Roman rite is used, though some churches vary, being thus expressed in the Martyrology: "At Tarascon in Narbonese Gaul, of St. Martha the virgin, hostess of our Savior, and sister of blessed Mary Magdalene and of St. Lazarus." The practice is not the same among some churches of Gaul, as we said of St. Mary Magdalene in its place. Castellanus noted, in the first Bimester, page 346, that both sisters are celebrated on this very same day at Orléans, but with what rite he did not set forth. I have at hand the most recent directory of the church of Auxerre, in which the feast of St. Mary Magdalene is marked on the 22nd of July; but on this day the Office is of St. Lupus of Troyes, with a commemoration of SS. Mary and Martha, the hostesses of Christ. So too elsewhere the ecclesiastical Offices are subject to alteration according to the varying judgment of today's critics, as may also be seen among the Cluniacs, where the brother is joined to the sisters themselves on the 1st of September, as the same Castellanus witnesses, chiefly by whose lead and prompting the Office of St. Mary of Bethany is recited in the diocese of Paris on the 19th of January; but St. Martha, the hostess of Christ, has not been moved from her place, her present feast being kept there with a semidouble rite.
[5] And these things indeed are sufficiently certain, whatever a French compiler of new legends may eagerly have seized upon, which he had found noted in the Prætermissi at the 16th of February from a manuscript Martyrology of Aachen, Saussay follows the ancient tradition, namely that on that day the birthday of the sisters Martha and Mary and of Lazarus is marked at Jerusalem—as though that codex, manifestly erring, could be set against the rest. Here, as elsewhere, we follow those things which are more probable, which no more than a hundred years ago were commonly admitted throughout Gaul itself, from which accordingly Saussay did not depart, writing thus expressly in his Martyrology: "At Tarascon in Narbonese Gaul, of St. Martha the virgin, who, the sister of blessed Mary Magdalene and of Lazarus, received our Savior Jesus Christ into the hospitality of her house; after whose Ascension, migrating by divine prompting into Gaul together with them, she first settled at Marseille, where, having gathered a company of her own sex, she gave to it the first examples of the regular life; then, having proceeded to Tarascon in order to enlarge the worship of Christ and the same institute, after the completed measure of her pious labors she joyfully flew away, on the day which she had foretold, full of merits and illustrious for miracles, to the sight of the eternal King and to the fellowship of the blessed citizens of the Sion above. At her tomb, since great tokens of divine power and glory were being wrought, Clovis, king of the Franks, being brought there, was healed of a grave sickness by which he was held."
[6] Guesnay's ancient monuments To collect more concerning the sacred cult of St. Martha from the Calendars, in a matter so manifest, I judge superfluous. Take only what our Guesnay, in his "Magdalene the Stranger at Marseille," collected in passing concerning the holy Sister—illustrious monuments of veneration—in chapter 18, from whose §6 I transcribe these things: "At Avignon, where Martha, brought first to preach the Gospel of Christ, betook herself, there lie open no obscure traces of her virtues and miracles; for the little plot of the dwelling which she had occupied, raised into a very narrow chapel, marked by a modest roof, is today visited by many for religion's sake, and would perhaps be seen by more, were the place not almost unknown to the common people, or the approach to it, for the most part, shut off by doors. Formerly indeed, when it was better known—whether on account of a more recent memory of her benefits, or on account of the zeal of Christians for religious veneration, kindled with a more ardent love—it used to be so venerated by the people of Avignon that scarcely anyone believed he had visited the neighboring and adjoining temple of the Virgin Mother of God who had not also frequented those most holy traces of Martha's little cell.
[7] "The house is situated toward the East on the brow of a cut hillock, what survives at Avignon not far from the back gate of the papal palace and its very lofty tower. From there the most spacious buildings of the metropolitan church and of the college of canons occupy almost the whole district. This was the reason why the place is altogether out of the way and remote: for it is not reached by fixed paths, and one has need of a guide skilled in the route. But there too, as I think, some memorial of the matter and the place seems to have been left, in that the people of Avignon hold Martha's birthday among their feasts, and, when it comes round, the aforesaid canons every year decree a procession to her chapel, and there, with a frequent concourse of citizens, perform some allotted horary portion of the priestly office and the solemnities of the Mass, lest so memorable a monument of piety should utterly perish. In a bulled diploma given in the year of salvation 1475, on the 20th day of February, by which Pope Sixtus IV, the regular form being changed, transferred the canons of Our Lady 'a Domnis' into secular canons, these words are read: 'Since therefore, as we have learned, although the church of Avignon of the Order of St. Augustine, which shines among the other cathedral churches of those parts, and was once founded by blessed Martha, hostess of the Lord Jesus Christ the Redeemer, to the praise of Him and of the glorious Virgin, etc.'" But in what sense these words of Sixtus IV are to be understood, Papebroch will teach you in the Propylæum, page *79 e, which it suffices to have noted here in passing. Guesnay continues.
[8] he recounts accurately enough. "They report that in the same city the most renowned monastery and church of the Friars Preachers breathe, as it were, the sanctity of Martha and a certain almost divine work. For it is said to be the place, or rather the trace of the place,
in which a certain young man, quite near Avignon, having been drowned in the river and dead, she restored to life and health. I have as witnesses not a few of the most approved faith and religion, and St. Vincent Ferrer, who was present at Avignon at nearly the time when, in the recent foundation of the same monastery, this miracle was in the mouths of those who saw or spoke of it. 'After this,' he says, 'Martha went to Avignon, and when she had preached there in a certain great square (where now stands the convent of the Preachers), a certain unbelieving young man, wishing to come to the sermon without a boat, tried to cross the Rhône by swimming, and was drowned, and after four days was found. Blessed Martha raised him, devoutly praying to Jesus Christ that, as He Himself had willed to raise Lazarus her brother, so He would will to raise this young man.'" You have the substance of the celebrated miracle, somewhat embellished by Bernard Gui and various Legends. But let these Avignonese traces of religious veneration now suffice. Now we proceed to Tarascon with Guesnay.
§ II. St. Martha, the Glory of the People of Tarascon.
This glory, indeed, I judge should be sought not from wondrous signs or the most widely circulated prodigies, but from the precious relics of the Saint constantly honored in that place, from the church dedicated to her, uncertain and obscure matters being passed over, from her perpetual patronage there—things which he who published a panegyrical history in French, of which there will be discourse below, calls the triumphs of St. Martha. As for that famous dragon, everywhere depicted in hideous colors, the dedication of the temple built by the Saint, and other things no less astonishing which are said to have happened at her death and funeral; then the coming of King Clovis to Tarascon and his cure from an incurable disease, and other marvels of that kind, worthy rather of wonder than of certain faith—these, I say, I do not undertake here to vindicate or assert. Let it be enough to rest content with those matters which conduce to the solid glory of St. Martha: and this above all, that, having departed from Avignon, she betook herself to Tarascon, and there closed a most holy life (by which, more than by words, she is to be reckoned to have instructed the inhabitants) with a like death. Nor indeed ought anyone to shrink from this—that, while she abode in that place, not only as the Hostess of Christ but also as an Apostle, among her first cares she began to think of gathering together virgin sisters, in whose company she spent the rest of her life.
[10] For the rest, what kind of temple she herself was able to build at Tarascon her sacred body noted as found in 1187 it is not easy to gather from sufficiently certain indications. They themselves would have it understood of the lower church, in which, namely, her sacred body was found, as the following inscription notes:
"When twenty times nine with a thousand years had elapsed, In the last year the Hostess of Christ is revealed to us; When twelve hundred years, less three, had passed, Bishop Imbert, with Bishop Rostagnus alongside him, consecrates the church on the first of June."
From which it appears, says Guesnay, that the relics of most holy Martha, which formerly, on account of the fury of the heathen, had to be concealed, and were kept set apart and hidden in the crypt of the lower church, were divinely found in the year 1187; but that the upper sacred edifice was constructed and inaugurated in the year 1197. As for what is asked concerning the bishops, one may conjecture that the first, Imbert, was of Aqueria, who is numbered among the archbishops of Arles. Rostagnus was archbishop of Avignon.
[11] We come by degrees to clearer matters; for those things which were done in later centuries rest upon such documents that, if equal ones concerning the more ancient traditions were had, in 1459 the head placed upon a silver reliquary the pens of the cavilling critics would long since have been repressed. Let us hear what Guesnay here relates, page 119: "In the year 1458 the tomb of most holy Martha was opened; and her venerable skull was placed within a silver head overlaid with little golden crusts, as appears from the Acts prescribed in that matter, which we have faithfully excerpted from the records of the common estate of Tarascon, as anyone will see may most conveniently be perceived." And we too will here subjoin from Guesnay, whence it may appear with how great a veneration—which we do not think has grown cold—the people of Tarascon, the most faithful clients of St. Martha, once cherished this most precious deposit. The title of the instrument is of this kind: "Process made concerning the reposition of the head of St. Martha at Tarascon, into a silver gilded image, in the year one thousand four hundred fifty-eight, and on the eighth day of the month of August." Then it runs thus:
[12] which whole matter "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen. In the year of His incarnation 1458, on a certain day entitled Tuesday, the eighth of the month of August, in the felicitous reign of the most serene and illustrious prince and our lord Renatus, by the grace of God king of the kingdoms of Jerusalem and Sicily, duke of the duchies of Anjou and of Bar, and count of the counties of Provence and Forcalquier, and of Piedmont. Amen. By the tenor of this present public process let it be made manifest to all, that, divine providence permitting and the Holy Spirit inflaming the Christian people of the town of Tarascon, of the diocese of Avignon—which people and community of the said town of Tarascon, moved by a singular devotion toward the glorious virgin St. Martha, buried in the said town of Tarascon and in its church, who deserved to be called the Hostess of Christ, Savior of the world—and that the head of the same glorious St. Martha, kept in a certain small casket, placed in a tomb behind the altar of St. Martha, in the lower chapel; out of reverence for the same glorious virgin St. Martha, they had made one silver gilded image, and round about it the life of St. Martha in silver figures, as can appear plainly to the eyes, and they had it borne by four Tarascas, that she might be invoked with greater devotion.
[13] accurately "But because, the said work of the head having been completed, as is described above, by the permission of our most high Lord, it happened that our aforesaid most serene lord King Renatus arrived at the said town of Tarascon, together with the most illustrious princess our lady Joanna, queen of Jerusalem and Sicily, his consort. To whose royal majesty the community of Tarascon caused it to be set forth, through the noble and honorable men Lord Jean de Luperiis, doctor of laws, and Jacques Rodulfi, syndics of the said town of Tarascon (the same lords syndics being assisted by the magnificent knight Lord Jean de Saint-Michel, lord of Boucedon, captain of the Castle of Baux and of the whole barony, and royal counselor), that the aforesaid silver work had been completed. And so there remained nothing except to take up the head of the said glorious virgin Martha and to have it placed within the said silver image; and that it might be done more worthily, with honor and praises of God and of the said St. Martha, they humbly required the same royal majesty that in the taking-up of the said head, with his most illustrious retinue and the prelates of the church who ought to be present at such things, he might intervene, and that the truth might be attested and reported for the future, so that it might be affirmed to the Christian faithful who visit the body of the said St. Martha that that head had been taken up and placed within the said silver work.
[14] and authentically "And the said our lord King Renatus, as a true Christian, having singular devotion and love toward the said St. Martha, so great a patroness of his said town of Tarascon, considering that the head of the said St. Martha, if it were taken up and placed within the said work, would be better than as it lay in the earth of the aforesaid tomb, offered himself ready and prepared, with all honor and reverence he could—though he reckoned himself unworthy—to be present at the taking-up of the said head; and, for taking it up, to command the lord Cardinal de Foix, legate of Avignon, that he should come, and, if pleading his old age he could not come, to delegate and commit and deign to appoint another—which was also forthwith done. A little after, the said devotion being continued, there betook himself to the said town of Tarascon the venerable religious Lord Guillaume Morelli, canon and official of the episcopal curia of Avignon, as legate and commissioned by the said Cardinal de Foix, and this on a certain Thursday, entitled the tenth of the said month of August; which lord official and commissary, for the taking-up of the said head, together with the above-named lords syndics of Tarascon, notified the coming of the same lord official to our illustrious lord King Renatus, which done, between the said lord official and the syndics it was ordained and concluded to proceed to the opening of the tomb where, by a previous taking-up formerly made, as is there shown, the said glorious St. Martha is buried.
[15] "In the execution of which ordinance, first it was ordained it is described to suspend all handiwork in the said town of Tarascon, and this a preceding trumpet-blast announcing it, so that indeed the greater part of the Christian people, and almost the whole populace of the said town of Tarascon, betook themselves to the said church of St. Martha, to see the said opening of the tomb made and the head of the said St. Martha placed within the said image of gilded silver. These things being so done, the said lord official, together with the aforementioned syndics, betook himself personally to the chapel of St. Martha, and they prepared all their fortifications serving for the opening of the said tomb; and there straightway the aforementioned our lord King Renatus, and our said lady queen, together with the illustrious and magnificent duke, the Seneschal Lord Frederick of Lorraine, duke of Vaudémont, son-in-law of our said lord king, and lady Yolande his wife, daughter of our said lord king, and a frequent assembly of nobles and the rest of the royal court, drew near to the said church and chapel of St. Martha, where the said glorious St. Martha is buried.
[16] "These drawing near, and a devout prayer first made and having made to God and to the said glorious St. Martha, they proceeded to the opening of the said tomb; and first it was done by carpenters, our said lord king ever being present, to the opening of a certain tabernacle, raised on high, made of walnut boards, firmly closed with keys; and the opening of the said tabernacle having been made, within it was found one chest, full of earth, stones, and small bones of the said glorious St. Martha. Likewise, and secondly, since in the chest the head had not been found, the said lord king willed to have an inquiry from the elders of the said town who had been present at the taking-up of the whole body of St. Martha, and there straightway to our said lord king was led the noble Lazarus de Luperiis, above-named, a septuagenarian of the said town of Tarascon, who had been present at the taking-up of the body of the said St. Martha, and being interrogated by our lord King Renatus whether he had been present at the taking-up of the body of the said St. Martha, he answered that so it was—with several and diverse bishops and prelates—and that the body of St. Martha had been placed within one chest, of the length of four or five palms, and her head separated, in one other little casket, and that he had seen it with his own eyes placed within the tomb, set behind the altar of St. Martha.
[17] And indeed he showed with his finger, giving tokens, namely that there is in the chest, in the presence of King Renatus where is the body of St. Martha, one glass amphora, which conveniently
cannot be known of what it may be. It was found upon the body of the said glorious St. Martha, and upon her breast. In which it is said that it was of the earth upon which the blood of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ had been sprinkled while He was set upon the cross. These things being so said, the tomb was opened with great solemnities and devotion, with great lights round about, the doors of the gate of the chapel of St. Martha being closed, the aforementioned persons being shut in within it together with the undersigned notary. This being opened, there were found two chests, in one of which, namely the larger, were found the large bones of the said glorious St. Martha, and the body likewise in another little chest; there were found likewise the bones of the head of the said glorious St. Martha somewhat broken on account of the great distance of time during which the said head had been enclosed in the said vessel; and with the lower jaw of the said St. Martha, whole and shining as on the first day when it was found, without any violence or blemish—but from the said vessel there proceeded an incomparable odor, by which all present seemed satisfied. And there straightway, in the presence of our said lord king and of all the others, an admonition was made, in a loud and intelligible voice, that no person of whatever condition or grade should dare to take, publicly, secretly, covertly, or in any manner whatsoever, of the said relics, without the license of the said lord Cardinal or of his vicar, and this under pain of excommunication, which penalty was published twice and thrice, in a loud and intelligible voice.
[18] and other leading men And at last, the work of the head of silver having been brought there and placed upon the altar, the said lord official and the priests of the said church of St. Martha singing, the bells ringing, and the Christian people watching in prayers, great lights being kindled, the said head, taken up by the aforesaid lord official, was placed within the said work of silver; there being present our said lord King Renatus and his illustrious consort, Lord Frederick of Lorraine his son-in-law, lady Yolande his wife, daughter of our said lord king, Fulquet d'Aragon, lord of Misone, Jean de Saint-Michel, knights, Antoine de Pontevès, lord of Cabannes, the syndics and assessor of the said town, and we the undersigned notaries, and all the other nobles and inhabitants of the said town of Tarascon, above named, and there straightway present continuously those above named. The said head being closed within the said silver vessel, in that part where it could be opened, it was likewise sealed with the small seal of the illustrious prince, our said lord king, and thereafter with the seal of the said town of Tarascon, in testimony of the truth of all the aforesaid. Thus taken up, with great honor and reverence and praises, it was carried up above, upon the altar, there kissed by the multitude of people standing there, and thence placed within a cupboard or shrine where it is to be kept (whose keys were left in the hands of the workman and the syndics of the said town), as it is and ought to be.
[19] in the said year 1458 These things being so accomplished, all returned to the other bones of the body of the said St. Martha, and to those reserved in the amphora, which was found upon the breast of the said St. Martha as a reliquary: to be known for the future, that all those were honestly brought back into the said great chest, it being first prepared with a veil, and with a very fine hempen cloth, and with great devotion they were placed within the said tomb, the lowermost, and within one of the chests where the glorious St. Martha herself had first been taken up; and in a higher marble vessel, above the said vessel, was placed the chest wherein are all the other small bones of the said St. Martha. Which tomb was heaped up and covered on the first day with a certain marble vessel; and at last with a certain other stone raised on high a good way, and thus the body itself, duly enclosed and entombed, is kept with great honor and reverence by the said town of Tarascon, where daily infinite miracles are wrought through the intercession of the same glorious St. Martha. And at last, the Lord's Day coming, which was the 13th of August, the said head was, with great honor and reverence, carried in procession beneath a canopy through the said town, and this by the community, moved by singular devotion toward the said St. Martha. In witness of which I, Pierre Margoti, public notary, together with the honorable man master Jean Mutatoris, likewise notary, etc.
Annotations* perhaps "syndicos" syndics?
§ III. The more august reliquary of Louis XI, King of France, and other adornments of the same place, and the miracles of the Saint herself.
The French panegyrist whom we began above to indicate in a word, we shall here approach a little more closely. He was the very reverend and most ample Lord R. Bertet, who, when he published his book the august reliquary more fully in French in the year 1650, was Prior, Cantor, and canon at St. Martha's, afterward dean of the same church, who wove a wordy oration into a book of good size, easily to be contracted into a few pages, so that therefore it need seem strange to no one if we have scarcely used that work. The author divided it chiefly into four parts, of which the first exhibits St. Martha as innocent, the second as acting or operating, the third as acquiring or gaining, and the fourth at last—of which alone we shall use a very little—leads his heroine about as triumphant. I pass over what he perorates most wordily in his manner throughout the whole nine chapters of that last part; I take up in hand that which he writes at length in chapter 10, concerning the notable munificence of Louis XI, King of France, which he extends to a full twelve pages, but which I have preferred to draw from Guesnay, lest with so many digressions studiously woven in there I bring weariness rather than pleasure. Here, then, is what he himself relates concerning the most magnificent reliquary, page 122:
[21] "In the year 1478 Louis XI, king of the Franks, offered that golden head of St. Martha more briefly described in Latin, which even now is presented for all to behold, a notable monument of his piety and royal munificence. That head had been wrought by André Mauche of Tours, an artificer of goldsmiths' works, and by him brought to Tarascon, accompanied by the royal treasurer of pious largesses, concerning whom the acts, solemnly attested in written letters, they carried back to Paris to the undersigned Lord Philip, etc. In the same year 1478, on the 9th of December, the skull of St. Martha, from that former silver reliquary, merely overlaid with gold, was carried over into this solidly golden head and most fittingly placed; which head was consecrated by the most illustrious and reverend bishop of Sisteron with more solemn apparatus, and carried about the city with the greatest honor, together with a solemn thanksgiving of all the orders to the sacred edifices before the divine Godhead, King Renatus himself with the queen following, and with a retinue of all the courtiers, lords, and princes."
[22] and it is here exhibited. Bertet here fittingly supplied what our author had omitted, namely the image of the most august reliquary itself, which to have beheld is enough for one to determine concerning the royal munificence. Behold it, as it is represented, engraved on copper by Bertet in the French work already cited. The histories which you see expressed in relief-work need no interpretation; they are the very chief deeds of the life of St. Martha, as they are circulated in the Legends. The orator adds further that the royal liberality toward the holy Patroness did not stop there, inasmuch as, in her honor, he enriched the church where her sacred body is deposited, founding fifteen rich canonries, and all the other subordinate offices, perpetual vicars, clerks, chorister-boys, and the rest of the offices of that kind, in imitation of the holy royal chapel of Paris, so far that the chapter of St. Martha was scarcely second to any in the whole kingdom. The orator goes on to set forth in detail what and what manner of gifts the munificent king besides conferred upon that church, and the various and illustrious benefits which he referred as received from his most holy Patroness, being delivered also from various snares and from the present peril of death, of which matter he left as witness a very large silver-gilt chalice, which even today continues to be in use on the more solemn festivals. And from these things, I think, you easily gather how much is to be made of the observation of Chalemot, when in his Menology he supposes the head of St. Martha to be placed elsewhere, namely among his own nuns.
[23] Further, having recounted the benefits of Louis XI and of the other kings of France toward the Tarascon church of St. Martha, other monuments erected to her Bertet proceeds in the following chapter 11 to enumerate the honors shown to the Saint by men set in the highest ecclesiastical dignity, and among them by the supreme power on earth: all of which being adorned with a long oration, he meant to say this—that Gregory XI, while he still resided at Avignon, erected a sumptuous altar in the church already mentioned, remarkable both in material, namely gold, silver, and precious stones, and in notable artifice; describing its several parts, namely the chief actions of the Saint, expressed there in relief-work, in his manner, so exhibiting Martha represented as triumphant on that altar that he asserts at least this most truly: that it cannot be that anyone who contemplates the magnificent altar should not at once, from so various and manifold images, perceive that it is consecrated to the most worthy Hostess of Christ. He adds at last that all the other ecclesiastical dignitaries eagerly conferred, by their vows and liberalities, gifts and offerings which would render more illustrious the triumph of that most holy Patroness: and these things throughout the rest of the chapter he recounts, in his oratorical manner, abundantly—concerning the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, archbishops, princes, and other lords and nobles.
[24] More nearly pertaining to the glory of St. Martha are the votive tablets there displayed on every side, in perpetual memory of the miracles wrought by the Saint. then the votive tablets This indeed is plainly wonderful, by Bertet's testimony: that from every quarter an enormous multitude of people gather, laden everywhere with those offerings which each eagerly brings to the holy Preserver in thanksgiving, both for singular benefits received and for imminent evils from which they acknowledge themselves delivered by the patronage of the Saint. If we believe the orator, nowhere are there so many gifts, nowhere so many paintings, nowhere so great an array of some triumphant Saint, as that which in the one temple of St. Martha snatches the eyes of the beholders into admiration; so that, with the signs and prodigies recorded, as with so many hangings, the very walls are wondrously adorned; let us say that each stroke of the brushes, each color, each very word renders illustrious testimony of the graces received through the intercession of the most powerful Triumphress: or the very garbs of the diverse nations, the hung-up arms, the ships, the shapes of human hearts, heads, shins, and arms are proofs of gratitude, presenting, in that armory of benefits of every kind, a spectacle no less pious than pleasant.
[25] Lest the account of the miracles, nearly innumerable, should run out to an immensity, witnesses of very many miracles our orator restricts himself to this—that he does not fear roundly to testify that all the elements are subject to St. Martha, over which she has prodigiously exercised dominion. Beginning from fire, he adduces a memorable example: when in the year 1639, a fire having broken out, the whole city of Tarascon was in peril, no small part of it being aflame; but the relics of the Saint
being set against the now raging flame—which threatened certain destruction not only to the city but also to the ripe harvest all round about—it so suddenly subsided that it had as many witnesses of a most manifest miracle as there were inhabitants of Tarascon. As for the air, the Saint no less powerfully checked its pernicious influences, when in the years 1629, 1639, 1640, and 1649, a pestilential plague raging all round about, she so wonderfully protected her clients of Tarascon that, while the contagion had invaded all their neighbors, they themselves were immune from it. He then relates how often the Saint visibly repressed the overflowing waters of the most rapid Rhône, and restored the drowned to life. Finally, that he may show her to have triumphed also over the earth, Bertet especially extols this—that the territory of Tarascon perpetually rejoices in constant fertility and abundance under so powerful a Protectress.
[26] The conclusion of the work is fittingly brought round to this—that the triumphant Martha cherishes and guards her people of Tarascon with an altogether singular protection, the singular privilege of the people of Tarascon and daily heaps them with innumerable benefits, so that most rightly she may be called not only their Patroness, but by a more gracious title their most loving Mother. Nor indeed need one seek outside Tarascon the miracles by which the merits of the Saint are illustrated, since in that one city alone, if Bertet is to be believed, they are daily and continual. One thing you will, together with me, miss in the orator—that in his very long panegyric he neglected to explain what would have conduced not a little to the honor of the Saint: namely, with what rite or with what solemnity of Office that chapter of St. Martha was accustomed to celebrate its most holy Patroness. What therefore Tarascon did not furnish, had to be fetched from Avignon, as from the metropolis; whence we long ago received "The Office of Blessed Martha, virgin and hostess of Christ. According to the laws of the Roman Breviary last amended by the authority of Clement VIII." Thence we must now take those things which will exhibit some sequence of her whole life and virtues, from the Gospel itself, from the encomiums of the holy Fathers, and from the Legends long ago made common.
[27] her patronage in the Saint. In that Office, distributed through the octave, as we say, these things are chiefly to be observed: that, as the Psalms at all the Hours are taken from the ordinary of the Roman Breviary, so several Antiphons are exhibited, conceived for the most part in the words of the Gospel, and two proper hymns, as also some responsories, as will appear more clearly from those things which we shall deduce in the following §. The lessons at the First Nocturn of the first day are common enough, from the books of Ecclesiasticus and Proverbs; those of the Second Nocturn from St. Augustine, those of the Third from St. Basil: on the second and third days they are rightly taken from other holy Fathers. On the fourth day the Office is of St. Peter in Chains. On the fifth day are set the lessons of the Second Nocturn from the Roman Breviary at this day, the 29th of July. Further, on the sixth day of the Finding of St. Stephen, on the seventh of St. Dominic; on the eighth at last the lessons of the Second Nocturn are drawn from tradition or from the common Legends, on what authority these rest, from those things which we discussed concerning St. Mary Magdalene, we consider sufficiently manifest. These few specimens will here suffice, that judgment may be passed concerning the longer histories in Vincent of Beauvais, St. Antoninus, Peter de Natalibus, Bernard Gui, and others; Marcella, Syntex, and others of that kind are deservedly not received today. For us, then, it will be enough to have culled the chief chapters of her Life from that Office.
§ IV. The Deeds of St. Martha, from the Avignon Office.
The Office is established Antiphons at Vespers. I. "Jesus entered into a certain town, and a certain woman, Martha by name, received Him into her house." II. "But Martha was busied about much serving." III. "Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus." IV. Jesus said to Martha: "Thy brother shall rise again: I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live." V. Martha said: "Yea, Lord, I have believed that Thou art Christ the Son of the living God, who art come into this world." Little Chapter. "The grace of a diligent woman shall delight her husband, and shall fatten his bones; her discipline is the gift of God." Hymn. "Whatever the city on high hides in its hollow compass, this, Martha, thou dost enclose within thy dwelling, when Jesus came thither. Thrice blessed the dining-halls, the tables, the foods, the seats, which that Body touched, which consecrates all things by its touch. But more blessed the hostess, who feedest Him by whom thou art fed, and fillest thy mind with the guest, while thou tendest the limbs of the guest. How pleasant is that trouble to thee, upon which such rest attends; how do those tasks refresh thee, which offer so great a repose! Grant, Martha, grant to the faithful so to feed the members of Christ, that they may fill their breast with God, and feel not the surging heats of the world. Make, O sweet guest of minds, that by the hostess's suffrage we may rejoice in the quiet fellowship of the citizens of heaven."
[29] Antiphon at the Magnificat. "Martha received the Lord as strangers are wont to be received, but nonetheless the handmaid received the Lord, with proper Antiphons the sick one received the Savior, the creature the Creator, she who was to be fed in spirit received Him who was to be fed in flesh." Prayer. "Almighty everlasting God, who didst will that Thy Only-begotten, sojourning on earth for the salvation of men, should be received in the hospitality of the most holy virgin Martha: grant, we beseech Thee, that by the merits and intercession of the same virgin we may be worthy to be mercifully received into the dwelling of the heavens." Invitatory. "The Emperor of the heavens, who received blessed Martha into heaven, by whom He had been received on earth—come, let us adore." Hymn. "O Christ, justly tempering the laws of life and of death, and once covering the guilty of the tomb with the long night: what was that force of love, what the power of the hostess, that Him snatched away by Thine own law Thou shouldst render to the suppliant? Already for the fourth sun Lazarus lay, the prey of death; cold had covered his heart, pallor his face, lividness his limbs; and corruption flowed forth through the air with foul breath; Martha melts in tears, Martha falls suppliant; Martha hopes, Martha believes, proclaiming Thee God; Thou art overcome, and Thou renderest to the weeping woman her pious tears again: Thou groanest, and with divine breath dost break the bonds of death; commanded, death hears, and to itself Lazarus becomes a survivor. O Christ, make the faithful people to feel the prayers of the hostess, and to leave, restored to life, the sepulchres of their guilt."
[30] At the First Nocturn. Antiphon I. "Blessed Martha had a sister, Mary by name, who also, sitting at the feet of the Lord, heard His word." at each Nocturn, II. "Martha stood and said: Lord, hast Thou no care that my sister hath left me alone to serve? Speak to her therefore, that she help me." III. "Answering, the Lord said to her: Martha, Martha, thou art careful and art troubled about very many things. But one thing is necessary; Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her." There follow the Lessons of the First Nocturn, of which it was said above. Then at the Second Nocturn. Antiphon I. "There was a certain man sick, Lazarus of Bethany, of the town of Mary and Martha his sisters." II. "His sisters therefore sent to Jesus, saying: Behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick." III. "But Jesus, hearing it, said to them: This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that God may be glorified by it." Lessons IV, V, and VI are noted as taken from the sermon of St. Augustine on the Words of the Lord, no. 26, which it is fitting here to transcribe, passing over those few things which we gave above.
[31] Lesson IV. "Martha and Mary were two sisters, both not only in flesh, and with proper Lessons: but also in religion, sisters german; both clung to the Lord, both served the Lord present in the flesh with one accord. Martha received Him as… For the Lord willed to take the form of a servant, and, having taken the form of a servant, to be fed in it by servants of His condescension, not of His condition. For it was also condescension, to offer Himself to be fed. He had flesh in which indeed He would hunger and thirst; but do you not know that in the wilderness the angels ministered to Him when hungering? Therefore that He willed to be fed, He granted to her who fed Him." Responsory. "Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, ran to meet Him, etc." Lesson V. "Martha therefore, disposing and preparing to feed the Lord, was occupied about much serving. Mary her sister rather chose to be fed by the Lord. She in a manner deserted her sister toiling about much serving, and herself sat at the feet of the Lord, and, being at leisure, heard His word. A most faithful ear had heard: Be at leisure, and see that I am the Lord. The one was troubled, the other feasted; the one disposed many things, the other looked upon one. Each office is good; but nevertheless which is the better, what shall we say? We have One whom to ask, and let us patiently hear."
[32] then with Responsories, Responsory. "Martha said to Jesus: But now I know that whatsoever Thou shalt ask of God, God will give it Thee, etc." Lesson VI. "Good are the ministrations about the poor, and especially the services due about the Saints of God, religious observances. For they are rendered, not given, the Apostle saying: If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things? These are good, yet better is that which Mary chose; for the one has occupation of necessity, the other has sweetness of charity. A man wishes to be attentive when he ministers, and sometimes he cannot. What is lacking is sought, what is at hand is prepared, the mind is distended. For if Martha were sufficient for those things, she would never have asked her sister's help. Many are they, diverse are they, because they are carnal, because they are temporal; and if they are good, they are transitory. But to Martha what does the Lord say? Mary hath chosen the better part; not thou a bad one, but she a better." Responsory. "But Jesus said to Martha: He that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live, etc."
[33] with homilies, At the Third Nocturn. Antiphon I. "Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, ran to meet Him." II. "Martha, the sister of him that had died, said to Jesus: Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he is now of four days." III. "Jesus answered her: Did I not say to thee, that if thou believe, thou shalt see the glory of God?" Lesson VII, a homily of St. Basil the bishop. "Martha received the Lord into her hospitality, but at His feet Mary sits. The zeal in each sister is indeed to be praised. For the rest, do thou distinguish the matters. For Martha, occupied in the ministry, was preparing those things which would be necessary for the body of the guest. Mary, on the contrary, since she sat at His feet, was at leisure to hear the things which were said by Him. Thus the one refreshed that part of the Lord which could be touched by sight; the other attended to that part which, being hidden, could not be discerned. For truly He who was present was both man and God. He approved the same zeal of both women." Responsory. "Yea, Lord, I have believed that Thou art Christ the Son of the living God, etc."
[34] Lesson VIII. "But Martha, when she was wearied with too much toil, asked the Lord and again with proper ones that He would be willing to exhort her sister to help her in the office she had undertaken. For 'Tell her,' she says, 'that rising she serve with me.' To whom the Lord: Martha, Martha… For that was not the cause on account of which we came hither, that we should recline supine upon couches, nor that we should fill the belly, but for this reason we are here, that we may feed ourselves with the word of truth and with the contemplation of the mysteries. And so the Lord neither
dissuaded her from the ministry she had undertaken, and granted praise to this one, that she listened to the things He said." Responsory. "Did I not say to thee, etc." Lesson IX. "Come then, I perceive that by the two women two kinds of life are introduced to me: one indeed of a lower note, namely that which occupied itself in performing the grosser offices of this life, although it too is wonderfully useful. The other more noble and more joined with the spirit, namely that which raised itself higher to the contemplation of hidden things. Do thou who hearest these things interpret them fittingly to the spirit, and whichever shall please thee more, love it; and if thou wilt minister, minister in the name of Christ. For He Himself said: Inasmuch as ye did it to one of these my least brethren, ye did it to me."
[35] which are repeated In the rest of the Office the same Antiphons recur; the Hymn at Lauds deserves to be transcribed: "With a happy oarsman, Martha—with helm, sail, breeze, steersman, sailor—set sail. Since Christ becomes all these, our shores long to hold thee in their eager bosom, thee whom the coast of the treacherous land knew not how to sustain. Thou shalt drive monsters from our lands, restore bodies to life, and free kings from diseases. What each suppliant shall seek, this, obtained, the powerful one shall bring, prosperous and healthful, and thou wilt forsake none in sorrow. O thrice and four times, O seven times blessed the dweller of the city, who close at hand celebrates thee and the resting-place of thy bones. To whom it is granted to prostrate himself near Him who sprinkles the place with weeping, who presses his breast to the earth, who pours out his vows with a murmur. Make, O sweet guest of minds, that by the hostess's suffrage we may rejoice in the quiet fellowship of the citizens of heaven." The homilies which are recited on the second and third days explain the deeds of St. Martha no more than those already said, or sufficiently known from elsewhere. On the fourth day the Office is of St. Peter in Chains; but on the fifth are recited the lessons from the Roman Breviary, which, for the sake of those to whom that Office is not at hand, it may be helpful here to subjoin. Lesson IV.
[36] Martha, born of noble and wealthy parents, but more renowned for the hospitality of Christ the Lord, through the Octave after His ascension into heaven, together with her brother, her sister, and Marcella her attendant, and Maximin, one of the seventy-two disciples of Christ the Lord, who had baptized that whole household, and many other Christians, being seized by the Jews, is placed in a ship without sail and without oars, and committed to the vastest sea to a most certain shipwreck; but the ship, God steering, all being safe, was driven ashore at Marseille. Lesson V. By that miracle and by their preaching, first the Massilians, then the Aixois and the neighboring peoples believed in Christ, and Lazarus is made bishop of the Massilians, and Maximin of the Aixois. But Magdalene, accustomed to prayer and to the feet of the Lord, that she might enjoy the best part of contemplating the heavenly beatitude, which she had chosen, betook herself into a vast cavern of a very high mountain, where she lived thirty years, etc. Martha, however, by the wonderful sanctity and charity of her life, the minds of all the Massilians being drawn to admiration of her, withdrew to a place most remote from men, with some most honorable women, where she lived a long time with the highest praise of piety and prudence, and at last, her death long before foretold, illustrious for miracles, she migrated to the Lord on the fourth day before the Kalends of August. Her body has great veneration at Tarascon.
[37] These things are almost from the Legend of St. Mary Magdalene, of which we have said enough elsewhere. others occurring Since on the sixth day the Finding of St. Stephen, and on the seventh the festival of St. Dominic are celebrated, only on the last day of the Octave are proper lessons adduced, received there by ancient tradition, which will be able here to supply the place of a longer history. Lesson IV. "It is good to hide the secret of a king, but to reveal and confess the works of God is honorable. For that reason the wonderful works by which God willed to illustrate both the life and death of Blessed Martha, the church of Tarascon once cherished with pious and perennial memory, and propagated to this age by a most attested tradition. This among the rest is notable. A huge dragon, the destruction of lands and waters, had beset a dark grove on the bank of the Rhône. Thence, as if from an ambush, either upon those making their public journey on the embankment, rushing suddenly upon them, or upon the boats in the river, unforeseen, going beneath and overturning them, it made human prey. Fear had made the monster a veneration, and it was religion to touch what it was a horror even to hear. But when Martha came thither, secure of divine protection, she attacked the monster, and, sprinkling it with holy water, so tamed it that, bound with a woman's girdle, she handed it over to the people, now daring, to be mocked and slain."
[38] Lesson V. "Presently, when a great multitude of the people had now been brought over to the faith of Christ by her words and deeds, festivals she built up a church for the celebration of the sacred assemblies; to whose dedication, when she had summoned St. Maximin of Aix, Trophimus of Arles, and a great number of other faithful, wine was lacking for entertaining the guests; but by the pious prayers of the Hostess Christ was present, and, water being turned into wine, renewed the old miracle. This too is most worthy of memory. At the noble city of Avignon, where the mother-church of that of Tarascon is, in a certain celebrated assembly, between the gate of the city and the bank of the Rhône, Blessed Martha was speaking words concerning the faith of Christ. A young man, catching sight of the crowd from the farther bank, and eager to know what was being done, dared to strive thither by swimming, but, snatched away at once by the force of the river and drowned, he perished. His sought-out corpse is cast at the feet of the preacher: she, a brief prayer interposed, restored him whole and vigorous to his own."
[39] interrupted. Lesson VI. "What of that which is handed down to have happened at the funeral of Blessed Martha? At that time St. Fronto, one of the disciples of Christ, presided over the church of Périgueux: he, when he was solemnly performing the sacred rites, and did not depart in body from Périgueux, was nevertheless, Christ working it, present in body at the obsequies of Blessed Martha. Of which matter his pontifical gloves, left then in that place, gave proof, one of which is even now kept there. Finally, the same grace which they had afforded to her living, God preserved also to her dead. For Clovis, who first among the kings of the Franks gave his name to Christ, when he had freed that province, the second Viennese, from the yoke of the Visigoths, whom the Arian taint had then infected, began to be tortured by a most grievous pain of the reins. And so, admonished by the fame of the miracles which were daily wrought at the sepulchre of Blessed Martha, when he came thither a suppliant, he carried back full health." The whole Office is closed with this distich: "O hostess Martha, who didst receive Christ, pray that He may be a guest to us, as that One was thy guest."
§ V. The cult of St. Martha outside Provence, her relics, other miracles, and the temples dedicated to her.
Other relics of St. Martha What we related above from §2 concerning the sacred relics of St. Martha, hidden until the twelfth century, and again concealed until in the fifteenth century they were once more more closely enclosed—if these are to be admitted as certain and undoubted, it will surely be difficult to gather when or whence there were received the various other relics of the same Saint which are carried about under her name through Italy, Germany, Spain, Belgium, and perhaps other regions, as we shall presently relate at greater length from the credit of various writers. But we have often and abundantly warned already that we do not busy ourselves so scrupulously in these matters; for whether they be true relics of the holy Hostess of Christ herself, perhaps obtained at Tarascon, or of some other Saint of the same name, we continue to lean upon the principle we have received, that pledges of that kind are rightly and religiously honored, provided they be genuine relics of some Saint, that once and for all we may be exempted from the odious question which we have already so often said we neither wish nor are able to decide. In that sense, therefore, are to be understood the things which in this last paragraph, for the sake of the pious clients of St. Martha, we shall recount.
[41] At Florence Among these relics not the last place is held by those the knowledge of which Florence communicated with our predecessors through the excellent Father Master Raphael Badius, Confessor of the monastery of the Humiliate Virgins, in the neighboring place they call Montugo, which, distinguished by the name of St. Martha from its first institution—namely from the fourteenth century—rejoices in a precious treasure, brought thither in the year 1389 not without a miracle, illustrious afterward for other prodigies, and perhaps even today famous, although the documents of that matter have not reached us. Badius's little Italian commentary consists in this: that he marks the beginnings of the said convent at the year 1336, from the inheritance of a certain Lothair di Davanzato de Davanzati, who willed, through the executors of his testament, that the whole of it be spent in founding and building a convent of virgins, no rule being designated to which they should be subject; whence, since among the number of executors were Brothers Philip and Paul of the Order of the Humiliati, they held nothing more important than that, the due faculties being obtained from the Ordinary and the parish priest, they should introduce virgins of their own Order into that inheritance, a fund being procured for that purpose, on which they might erect a convent, which even after the extinguished or suppressed Order of the men, religiously perseveres among the virgins both there and elsewhere to this day.
[42] Further, there is plainly no place here for us to treat at greater length of those Humiliati brethren, among the Humiliate nuns, once most well known, at least in Italy, religious; whoever is desirous of knowing them, let him see in our work what has been said of the beginnings of their institution in the third volume of April, page 466, and of its extinction in the first volume of May, page 663, and then those writers who treated professedly of the Religious Orders—Paul Morigia, Giovanni Pietro Crescentius, Filippo Bonanni, Hippolyte Helyot, and others. More nearly pertaining to our matter is this: that the fabric of the church having been begun on the 8th of May 1342, they began seriously to think of introducing nuns there, and then on the 8th of September 1343, all being rightly ordained, noble virgins were admitted, whence that religious family of Humiliate nuns happily grew together, and, after the various adverse fortunes of the Order, as we said, subsists to this day. These things being thus premised, we come to the argument, being about to treat, by design, of the relics of our Saint, which, as by a plainly wonderful chance they were brought thither, so they left behind them singular documents of the patronage of the most holy Hostess of Christ. In this manner, then, in the aforesaid manuscript relation, Badius narrates:
[43] Not many years after the foundation of the convent just mentioned, which the Cardinal de Broniac brought thither that is, he says, about the year 1389, Cardinal Jean de Broniac, promoted by Clement VII of Avignon, about to pass that way from Gaul on his way to Rome, when he had proceeded to Montugo, felt, by a certain hidden force, the horse on which he sat held back and prevented from proceeding farther. Inquiring further into the cause of so unusual a prodigy, and being informed, he easily understood that it was that monastery sacred to St. Martha of Bethany, whose venerable relics—namely a joint of the thicker or middle finger—he had himself carried off with him from Provence; that he was compelled by a higher power to deposit those precious relics, however dear to himself, to be honored there in that place; and straightway entering the monastery itself, its superior and the other nuns being called to him, he ingenuously set forth the matter, as it had happened, and the sacred treasure
producing it, he munificently bestowed and presented these very relics to them, a most welcome gift indeed, both because they were the relics of their most blessed Protectress and Mother, and because they seemed to have been transmitted to them by divine disposition. Of the miracles that followed, I relate this one before the rest: that in the year 1524 there befell a manifold miracle in four different nuns, who by the intercession of the same Saint were at one and the same time delivered from a most imminent peril of death.
[44] with many miracles There are enumerated in that place, at greater length, the various diseases by which the four sisters then labored, expressed by their proper names—namely Magdalena Libri, Anna Davanzati, Bernarda Bernardi, Andrea de Guidi—who, when they had long lain afflicted with most dangerous infirmities, and were now given up for lost by the physicians, at last this one counsel, this one help remained: that the relics of their most holy Patroness should be carried in order from the church by the superior, all the other nuns piously accompanying, to those who were nearly at the point of death; to some of whom holy Martha herself had already shown herself present and had given them assurance of the recovery of their health. This assuredly, to the amazement of all, immediately followed: that three of them, presently rising from their beds, hastened to render thanks to their Preserver at her altar; while another, who had somewhat doubted, at last also followed the rest to the church, entirely sound and whole. Furthermore, when the fame of so great a miracle had reached the ears of the Vicar-general, Father Benedetto Bartoli, he straightway flew thither, and on the very feast-day of St. Martha, with signal solemnity, thanks were most solemnly rendered to God and to the most holy Wonder-worker; the whole course of the matter being duly set down in records, which we have thought it sufficient to have here contracted into a few words.
[45] famous in the same place. Nor is that most singular grace to be passed over which was conferred upon that whole holy family, by the altogether exceptional favor and patronage of St. Martha, five years later; when in the year 1529, war raging once again—as it had already for so many years been in tumult throughout Tuscany—arms then resounding everywhere about Florence, and while by the license of the soldiery all things were being plundered and set on fire, the nuns having withdrawn to safer places, leaving only a single aged lay sister to guard the house, this prodigy was observed: the marauding soldiers, having entered the monastery, were suddenly seized with such great dread that not even one dared to stretch out his hand to plunder; for a certain virgin, clad in white garments, leading a dragon bound with a rope, terrified them, going around the little cells of the virgins and the whole circuit of the monastery; and it was the constant opinion of all that this was St. Martha, depicted in that form in the church. This at least is beyond doubt: that no injury or loss whatever was inflicted upon the monastery by the soldiers; some of the plunderers even asserting that they had often heard by night the psalmody of the virgins, although they knew for certain that no religious woman was there at that time. And so much for that place: now let us survey other churches throughout Italy, at least the Roman and the Bolognese.
[46] Likewise at Rome in her own church, Well-known enough at Rome is the church of St. Martha, near our Roman College, built together with the neighboring monastery in the year, as Panciroli says, 1546, with almost incredible care and zeal of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of our Society, in order that penitent women converted from a slippery life might be received there to be trained to a better life; who afterward being transferred elsewhere, virgin nuns were admitted into that monastery, under the rule of St. Augustine, surviving there to this day. To our matter this makes especially, that, as Piazza testifies in his Hemerologium, relics of St. Martha are said to be honored in the church of that place. There is also another temple at Rome dedicated to St. Martha behind the basilica of St. Peter, where there is also a hospice or infirmary, appointed for the use of the Pontifical household. Furthermore, at St. Cecilia's the aforesaid Piazza found three bones of St. Martha, and other relics of the same at St. Maria della Vittoria. At Bologna likewise, in the square of St. Vitalis, Masini, on this day, mentions a temple sacred to the holy Hostess of Christ, in which her relics too are exposed for veneration, as also in the metropolitan church, at St. Stephen's, and at St. Lucy's of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus.
[47] Nor is our Belgium lacking in the sacred pledges of St. Martha, as Rayssius shows, where he testifies that he found them in more than one place in his Hierogazophylacium Belgicum. in Belgium; And first of all, in the most noble monastery of Anchin, at page 58, he relates to us an entire foot of the blessed virgin Martha, our own, that is, or the Tarasconese, who alone has hitherto been celebrated. "This foot," says Rayssius, "is the left, entirely whole, consisting of flesh and bones, and fittingly enclosed in a notable casket of crystal, of very great price indeed, fashioned in the form of a shoe." Bucelinus adds, in his sacrarium, that a most remarkable bone of the same is in the monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Nájera—so that from him you may understand that relics of St. Martha have reached Spain also. Then at Parc, the celebrated abbey of the Premonstratensian Order near Louvain, at page 401 of the aforesaid Hierogazophylacium, among various sacred and venerable treasures, some of St. Martha are also reckoned. Finally, at page 494, he weaves a good long catalogue of our Mechlin relics, where, by the gift of the lady Adriana de Ridder, some particles of Saints Mary and Martha are preserved.
[48] At Prague and elsewhere. Lest I be compelled to investigate or unroll many other treasures—which I readily allow to be done more easily by others with greater leisure—I suggest the last relics known to me, which our first volume of January offers at page 1084 in the longer Prague series, and then the second volume of the same month at page 612 in a like enumeration at Lisbon of such sacred remains, where among the rest some also of St. Martha are reckoned. Moreover, those Prague relics must be somewhat more notable, since without doubt on their account there was both erected a magnificent chapel, and throughout the whole diocese a solemn feast among the sacred relics of Bohemia is celebrated, as our Crugerius relates in volume 1, page 19. And with these things which have thus far been set forth, if not to critical and captious men, at least to the pious worshippers of St. Martha, I judge that enough has been done.