Bishop Norbert

ON THE HOLY BISHOP NORBERT,

FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF CANONS PREMONSTRATENSIAN IN GAUL,

APOSTLE OF THE CITIZENS OF ANTWERP IN BELGIUM,

ARCHBISHOP OF THE PEOPLE OF MAGDEBURG IN GERMANY,

To the Most Ample and Most Reverend Lord

ABBOT OF ST. MICHAEL OF ANTWERP.

A.D. 1134.

TO THE MOST AMPLE AND MOST REVEREND LORD JOHN CHRYSOSTOM TENIERS,

MOST WORTHY ABBOT OF THE MOST CELEBRATED CHURCH OF ST. MICHAEL OF THE SACRED AND CANONICAL ORDER PREMONSTRATENSIAN OF ANTWERP, ASSESSOR OF THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS ORDERS OF BRABANT,

FATHER ABBOT OF THE THREE ABBEYS

of Averbode, Tongerlo and Middelburg, LORD OF Santvliet, Berendrecht, Neder-Ockerzeel, List, LORD IN Wilrijk, Beerse, and Vosselaar,

CONRAD JANNING OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS.

Norbert, Founder of the Premonstratensian Order, and Archbishop of Magdeburg (S.)

Most Ample and Most Reverend Lord,

The Treatise which my Master in the study of Ecclesiastical history composed concerning the holy Father NORBERT, and the Abbey founded by him at Antwerp, and the Bishops his successors in it; I, in his name and my own, come to offer it to my onetime Fellow-student in youthful studies, but now Most Ample and Most Reverend Lord, as a monument of ancient familiarity, of present veneration, of perpetual obedience. For to whom rather should this Lucubration be presented, which begins from the holy Apostle of the people of Antwerp NORBERT, weaving through his Life; than to You? who hold his place at Antwerp, the forty-fifth Successor in continued order, a most deserving Bishop. To whom rather should the Lucubration be presented, which subjoins to his Life the Abbey founded by the holy Man, illustrating the obscure, renewing the ancient, bringing back the buried; than to You? who preside in that same place, a most prudent Rector, a most learned Estimator of antiquity. To whom rather should the Lucubration be presented, which brings forth the deeds and all kinds of virtues of the Abbots who there preceded, as it were into a theater, to be beheld by the whole world; than to You? who have learned to imitate and express those same virtues in your own person, having become to others a living model of the same. For to whom does the religious Bishop not now shine and shine forth in his manly age with the splendors of virtues; who as a private man and a youth and almost a boy, formerly shone with very many, acquired by continual exercise? Yours, Most Ample and Most Reverend Lord, yours are those things which I speak, done praiseworthily, wisely and constantly from boyhood beyond your age, while I heard and looked on, and was your rival in many things. For how often (it delights me to remember) did we contend in a fair contest, which of us should excel the other in the salutary knowledge of Christian doctrine; which in youthful Poetic praise; which in the glory of manly Eloquence; which in the Dialectical art of disputing! In which I more gladly recall that I sometimes surpassed others, by monthly intervals, as is the way; because at the same time I remember, that I was sometimes surpassed by You. What moreover do the public prizes indicate, which, the course of each class being run, yielded to you yearly? What the theater, which several times admired you declaiming with applause; and that very great and last honor of yours in the Humanities; where with the spectators being the Most Ample Senate of the city, the Consuls, and the supreme Governor of Belgium for the Catholic King, then recently created; you represented Cyrus the King, in royal habit, eye, gait, majesty: what, I say, does that theater resound other than your glory, sitting still so deeply in the minds of the spectators, that they will sooner forget Cyrus the former King, than the Actor? Meanwhile you were meditating a more celebrated theater, the Philosophical arena of Louvain, where even more applaudedly than at Antwerp you played an arduous part; and you came to such perfection, that after two years had passed, in the first, as they call it, Line you contended with the First for the first laurel of the glorious contest, having obtained the seventh out of innumerable, the sweet reward of labor. Hence about to ascend higher, you lower yourself; and following the example and institute of St. Norbert, before the glory of the world you embrace the reproach of Christ in the Novitiate of Antwerp: to which by the vote of all there succeeds Religious Profession. You are immediately ordered to ascend the Chair, to explain to others the Philosophy, which a little before you had well learned for yourself. I scarcely hold myself, from bursting forth here into fuller praises; since my own eyes and ears to this day represent to me that most celebrated assembly of men, the most learned of the whole city, who had flowed together to your Church, whether to attack, I should say, the Positions proposed by You as President; or rather to admire the ready solution of the knotty arguments given by You to the objectors? But your eloquence did not allow you to be longer spent on profane sciences, within private walls; being most apt namely for sacred sermons to the people, and for winning souls to God by public utterance. Your Church heard it for easily four continuous years, so bending and impelling, whither you wished, the minds of the hearers (which you still often perform, in that Dignity in which you are eminent) that no other eloquence is needed, much less mine, in praise of the Christian Orator. I pass therefore to the noble contention which thence arises, between Religion and the sacred Wisdom of Theology. Each desirous to conciliate You to itself, each to be illustrated through you, strives to draw You to its own side. Religion prevailed, and exalted your virtue, exercised through various things, to all the chief offices, of Procurator, Master of Novices, Prior, and at length Abbot. This would be enough for praise, did not virtue deserve loftier things, which made you Abbot; that virtue, which prefers to work things worthy of praise, than to be praised itself. That I propose to be beheld and admired, not in You for You, but in your predecessor Abbots. Behold first those more recent ones, whose immortal deeds still appear before our eyes, and affect our minds with perpetual sweetness by the remembrance of them; the Gerards, I say, the Josephs, the Macariuses, the Norberts, the Chrysostoms, the Matthews, the Christians, the Dionysiuses: what men! Pass thence to the more ancient, Cornelius de Mera, John de Weert, John Robyns; the first distinguished by liberality toward the needy, the second by benevolence toward subjects, the third by hospitality toward pilgrims. Add Andrew Aechtenryt most tenacious of what is right; John Fierkens most loving of books and the learned; Olardus Teerlinck most reverent of Ecclesiastical things: as well as Peter Breem, a solace to commiserate with for the wretched; and Martin Loys, most mild in gentleness. Admire the triad of Williams, accommodating from their indefatigable perseverance in good letters, from their wonderful continence amid banquets, from their assiduity in public psalmody. Behold the equal greatness of soul and constancy of Godefrid de Waerloos, neither elated in prosperous things, nor broken in adverse. Look up to the eminent dignity of Giles Bierevliet at the supreme summit of Prémontré, raised thither by his merits from being Abbot of Antwerp. Contemplate the sanctity of Waltmann, the first Abbot of the institute founded at Antwerp by the founder Norbert, a man (as his Epitaph sounds) full of an Apostolic spirit. These and other ornaments of your Predecessors are so the individual ornaments of individuals, that they are all yours: for while you renew them in You, you make them yours; so that it may be said of You (what the noble Poet Scaliger, honorably singing, attributed to your native city Antwerp, compared with all the chief cities in Europe)

OF WHICH THINGS THE SINGLE ONES ARE IN OTHERS, ALL ARE IN YOU.

And from this head too this our Lucubration is to be presented to none rather, to be read by none more pleasantly, than by You, who while reading will contemplate Yourself in them, and will give effort, that if any of those things perhaps be lacking to You, you may by emulation acquire them, perfect the acquired, conserve the perfected, that you may be able among your Canons in the Monastery, among your fellow-citizens in the City, among your countrymen in Belgium, among men everywhere in the World, with your Abbey, to be reckoned and to be, like the most lucid Brilliance of a Gem, like the most acute Edge of the Pupil of the eye, like the most beautiful Crown of the Laurel, like the most salutary Fruit of the tree of life, like the most fervent Ray of the Sun. For I would dare (that I may explain the more obscure things which I say) to amplify what our Charles Scribanius long ago magnificently left written, an encomium of Antwerp; extended by me to your Abbey too, which shares its glory with its Bishop.

BELGIUM THE RING OF THE WORLD,

AND THE GEM OF THIS RING,

ANTWERP;

AND THE MOST LUCID BRILLIANCE OF THIS VERY GEM,

YOUR ABBEY.

BELGIUM THE EYE OF THE WORLD,

AND THE PUPIL OF THIS EYE,

ANTWERP;

AND THE MOST ACUTE EDGE OF THIS VERY PUPIL,

YOUR ABBEY.

BELGIUM THE GROVE OF THE WORLD,

AND THE LAUREL OF THIS GROVE,

ANTWERP;

AND THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CROWN OF THIS VERY LAUREL,

YOUR ABBEY.

BELGIUM THE PARADISE OF THE WORLD,

AND THE TREE OF LIFE OF THIS PARADISE,

ANTWERP;

AND THE MOST SALUTARY FRUIT OF THIS VERY TREE,

YOUR ABBEY.

BELGIUM THE HEAVEN OF THE WORLD,

AND THE SUN OF THIS HEAVEN,

ANTWERP;

AND THE MOST FERVENT RAY OF THIS VERY SUN,

YOUR ABBEY.

The most lucid Brilliance of the Gem is your Abbey, which in its very rising dispelled the darkness of the Tanchelinian heresy, as the dawn the darkness of night; and joined the most splendid light of truth with a new ardor of piety. The most acute Edge of the Pupil is your Abbey, which looking out far beyond the circuit of Antwerp, like an eagle; detected the like darkness of heresy and impiety, at Averbode in the borders of the diocese of Liège, at Tongerlo in Taxandria, at Middelburg in Zeeland; and where the edge of the eyes had run before, it immediately brought in the brilliance of its light, Canons being sent who should exterminate the darkness thence; and three filial (as they call them) Abbeys being built, which should conserve the perpetual light. The most beautiful Crown of the Laurel is your Abbey; which with glory and honor crowned Antwerp (to speak from the sacred pages) in the vessels of its virtue. The most salutary Fruit of the tree of life is your Abbey, which the spiritual life of the citizens of Antwerp, once either lost it restored, or recalled it fleeing, and thereafter retained it, perennial up to now. The most fervent Ray of the sun is your Abbey; nay so many Rays, as the Pastors it sends out into the various villages around Antwerp, and has sent out perpetually innumerable ones, who with the light of faith and the ardor of charity illumine and kindle rustic hearts. This Abbey, to be commended by so many titles, changed for the better at various times, as was fitting, amplified more proudly, adorned more handsomely, owes to all your Predecessors together, that it may be beheld with admiration in person by those present; about to owe something further hereafter to You alone, that it may be beheld with admiration no less by those absent and most far distant, engraved in copper in manifold and elegant fashion. You have here, Most Ample and Most Reverend Lord, some ornaments of you as a youth, some of your predecessor Abbots, some of your Abbey; which in You, the successor of those, the Bishop of this, all redound. Those therefore as your own; and with them this Lucubration; as a monument, as I said, of our ancient familiarity, of present veneration, of perpetual obedience, kindly receive; offered in the year 1694, the day before the Dedication of your very Commander-in-chief, St. Michael the Archangel; who, just as he undertook from the beginning to protect your Abbey, likewise dedicated to his name, and through many ages up to now has faithfully defended it; so will he henceforth constantly champion the same, to your glory, and the more ample glory of God especially. So I wish and vow; rejoicing to serve now no less than once to learn together,

TO YOUR MOST AMPLE AND MOST REVEREND LORDSHIP,

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY TO THE ACTS OF THE LIFE AND TRANSLATIONS OF SAINT NORBERT

BY DANIEL PAPEBROCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS.

Norbert, Founder of the Premonstratensian Order, and Archbishop of Magdeburg (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

§ I. A chronological synopsis of the Life, the cult sanctioned by Gregory XIII, augmented by his successors.

If several peoples of Asia, the Colophonians, the Chians, the Salaminians, the Smyrnæans, thought it glorious to themselves to ascribe to their citizens Homer, famous for Poetic praise; and others before others not unbecomingly contended that he was their own: As men are honored by the glory of their homeland, how great a glorying ought to accrue to the Europeans, who claim Norbert, more eminent than Homer, and illustrious for the holier praise of virtues, as their own and their fellow-citizen, as the people of Xanten;

or acknowledge as the institutor of a most religious Order, as the Premonstratensians; or venerate as their Apostle, as the people of Antwerp; or sent to heaven as Archbishop, as the people of Magdeburg; or religiously keep dead in his ashes, as the people of Prague: whom that same the Gauls, Belgians, Germans, Italians, once admired traveling through their lands teaching with the salvation of many, now adore triumphant in the heavens. Xanten is situated, a city noble for its College of Canons, the magnificent fabric of its temple, and the birth of St. Norbert, in the duchy of Cleves near the Rhine. thus Norbert is the glory of many, Prémontré is situated in Picardy, a province of Gaul, distant three leagues to the west of Laon, more flourishing in the cultivation of religious virtues than in the fertility of the soil. Here are the cradle of the Order, which borrowed from it the name Premonstratensian. Antwerp, Magdeburg, Prague, mark places too well known to need to be explained. Born at Xanten, Therefore Norbert (many write Nortbertum, doubtless following the origin of the word, denoting the Prince of the North: but the softer pronunciation of most rubbed out the T; as when Lambert is said for Lantbert, that is Prince of the land, and Suibert for Suitbert, which can be interpreted as the southern Prince) Norbert, I say, had his birth at the city I have named, Xanten, born of a noble stock about the year 1085: he began to inhabit Prémontré, and laid the foundations of the religious Order, in the year 1120; called to Antwerp to destroy the heresy of Tanchelin, he received the church of St. Michael for himself and his followers, to be possessed for perpetual times, buried at Magdeburg, four years after; then taken up as Archbishop to the insignia of Magdeburg in the year 1126; and at last in the year 1134, on the VIth day of June, about to receive the eternal rewards of his labors, he migrated to heaven; commanding his body to be buried among his Brothers and Sons, in the church of Blessed Mary at Magdeburg: where it was also buried for some years, before the altar of the holy Cross in the middle of the monastery. But the good Sons (as the Acts have num. 115) who… loved to hold him, that he might be commended without oblivion to their memory, transferred him before their eyes into the choir. Hence at length in the year 1627, the Lutheran plague prevailing at Magdeburg, transferred to Prague, he was more gloriously transferred to Prague; with John de Pruetis, Abbot General of the Premonstratensians, already pressing for it from the year 1596, as is established from his letters, inscribed to the Abbot of St. Michael of Antwerp on that matter.

[2] But what the Author adds in the same place, that Norbert was Canonized already from the very time of Innocent III; Canonized not by Innocent III, and that this is established from old Martyrologies in the Vatican Library, which are read daily in the Roman Churches, especially of St. Peter, this has flowed from less certain knowledge, or a less sincere information: although the same thing afterward also wrote John le Paige, Syndic of the Order, lib. 2 of the Premonstratensian Library published in the year 1633, cap. 43; expressing besides distinctly the year of the Pontificate about XVII, which would be the year of Christ 1214, in which that Canonization was made. For besides that no writing of the aforesaid Innocent, or of another more ancient Pontiff before the XVIth century, exists on that matter or is recalled to have existed by any Writers; we, as eager to confirm the aforesaid opinion about the canonization; so studiously intent in person at Rome on examining several Martyrologies in manuscript and among them some proper to the very Vatican Church of St. Peter; grieve that we could elicit thence nothing of the desired confirmation. The authority of other Writers is opposed to the same opinion, who ascribe the Canonization of Norbert to far later times, and indeed speaking from their own memory: among whom Peter of Oudewater or Cratepolius, a Franciscan, Bachelor of Theology, in the Catalogue of all the Archbishops of almost the whole world etc. published at Cologne in the year 1596, where on page 232 treating of the people of Magdeburg and of Norbert; says that he was canonized in his own times by Gregory XIII in the year of the Lord 1582; but by Gregory XIII, namely only XIV years before this Bachelor of Theology printed these his works. To the same return the things which Aubert Le Mire has in the Monastic Origins page 371, saying, that Norbert was ascribed to the Saints by Gregory XIII in the year 1582, and that his diploma exists in his Premonstratensian Chronicle at the aforesaid year. Luke Castellini too, Procurator general of the whole Order of Preachers, in the treatise on the certitude of the glory of the Canonized which he printed at Rome in the year 1628, page 441, says that Norbert was certainly solemnly placed in the number of the Saints, granting his public cult but that it is not known by whom. But if he had applied a little more diligence and inquiry to his own matter which he was treating; he could easily have found out, that the Diploma was published by Gregory XIII, of which Le Mire, the only foundation we know, why Norbert is ascribed to the Canonized. For in it the Pontiff grants to the Premonstratensians among other things, that the feast of that same St. Norbert Confessor and Pontiff on the VIth day of June, on which the same St. Norbert migrated from this life to heaven, with its Octave, with a double office of one Confessor and Pontiff, in all and each of the monasteries, churches, and places of the said Order, may be celebrated in perpetuity with an anniversary solemnity; and the Commemoration of the same Saint, through the Divine Office. whenever other accustomed Commemorations ought to be made by the monastic institute or rite of the said Order, may be made; as well as that they may freely and lawfully describe and annotate the aforesaid St. Norbert, who in several Martyrologies, received by the use of the Catholic Church, is found described and annotated under that sixth day of June, in the Calendar of the same Order only, under the same sixth day of June, for a double feast with its Octave.

[3] Martyrologies being alleged, That the Pontiff might be moved to decree these things, there had first to be proved the old and immemorial cult of Norbert, as a Saint; and to this either solely or chiefly the Martyrologies seem to have been adduced, since the authority of those alone is alleged in the Bull already recited: but it was gratuitously assumed at Prémontré, that those were Vatican Martyrologies: this would be better said of the Gallican and Germanic ones, into which it was more natural for Norbert to be entered. Why nevertheless some thought of the Vatican ones, I seem to dig out the cause from the Premonstratensian Chronicle of Le Mire, expounding thus at the year 1582 the occasion of the Office sought and obtained. When John Molanus, he says, Doctor of Theology at Louvain, very well deserving of Ecclesiastical history, had published the Martyrology of Usuard with a little index of the Saints of Belgium (this is the Louvain edition, of the year 1573, prepared eight years after the first and afterward reprinted several times) it was not done without God's divine power, that in the said little Index he wrote these things about St. Norbert. "Norbert of Xanten, Founder of the Premonstratensian Order and Archbishop of Magdeburg, Molanus giving the occasion in his little index of the Saints of Belgium, is not yet inscribed in the Catalogue of Saints; not on account of a lack of merits, which he had most ample; but, as I think, because the Order neglected to seek it from the Roman See." Which words indeed so pricked the Reverend Lord Ambrose Loots, Abbot of the Monastery of Parc near the walls of Louvain; that he sent the most ample letters to John a Pruetis, then Abbot of Prémontré, and so the Prince of the whole Order, in which he exhorted him about abolishing that mark of negligence. By which it happened that the said Lord John a Pruetis, through the Most Illustrious Cardinal Philip Boncompagni, Protector of the Premonstratensian Order, and an old Ms. for the Canonization being found diligently dealt at Rome about Blessed Norbert being Canonized (as they call it) or ascribed to the Catalogue of Saints, by Gregory XIII the Roman Pontiff. And so while to that end the chests and libraries are shaken out, and luculent testimonies of sanctity are sought, there was found at Rome in the Vatican library a most ample writing, prepared many years back for the solemn Canonization (as they call it) of that man. Which indeed being diligently examined, Gregory XIII the Supreme Pontiff published the diploma about the feast of St. Norbert being solemnly celebrated on the VIth day of June, and another about the Indulgences to be earned on the same day among the Premonstratensians.

[4] Thus far Le Mire, having alleged the little Index of Molanus, which alone made for the matter, and the words querulous about the neglect of promoting the cult; there follows otherwise in the same place explained, Meanwhile Molanus abstained from the title of Saint: how much those people of Antwerp owe to him, which same things are also all had in the Nativities of the Saints of Belgium, together with a brief exposition of all the rest of the life, composed in the decade next after the edition of the little Index, but not published until another decade after, the author being dead, namely in the year 1595. Which I add that, from him who had not yet seen Norbert honored as a Saint, but his Anniversary celebrated yearly in Belgium with a funeral rite (which afterward was so changed for the better, that on the day after the feast a Mass of that kind is made for the dead of the same family) that, I say, you may not wonder that the more religious title is nowhere used by Molanus: whose omission in the Additions to the Martyrology, is also an indication to us, that none was seen by him either in manuscript or printed, which he himself might follow, for using the title of Saint. Yet that some such things existed already long ago we do not doubt (although neither have we seen any except a single Cologne one of the year 1521, where it is simply noted, the Commemoration of Norbert, of holy memory Archbishop of Magdeburg and Confessor, Founder of the Premonstratensian Order; and as many old Martyrologies as we have seen: and a Ms. Florarium, where it is read, On the same day of Blessed Norbert Bishop and Confessor) such things, I say, we do not indeed doubt to have existed already long ago, but we do not think that from such things an express and formal canonization of anyone is proved. What then? Those things prove to us a cult from an immemorial time, confirmed by the long-standing knowledge and toleration of the Apostolic See or of the Ordinaries, and so sufficient to found a declaration of indubitable sanctity for the whole Church, such as Gregory promulgated, alleging the Martyrologies: which also seem to have been either solely or chiefly alleged in that prolix writing, by which the Pontiff is said by Le Mire to have been moved. It would nevertheless be worthwhile to have the very instrument: wherefore I too wrote to Rome to the Most Illustrious Custodian of the Vatican Library Schelstrate, and was the author to the Premonstratensians that they should there through their own people urge the question, perhaps to profit toward this, if what is required be found, that it may be known who and when sent it to Rome, and before what Pontiff the cause was either instituted or to be instituted, by what impediments also intervening it was passed over up to Gregory.

[5] Meanwhile ascribing to this the Canonization of St. Norbert, as contained in that Decree, so that Gregory can be said to have canonized St. Norbert Michael Malcorps, in the Life of the Saint rendered in elegiac verses and printed at Liège in the year 1599, after he had noted in the margin these words, "He is Canonized in the year 1582, the 5th of the Kalends of August," thus concludes his poem:

And although Posterity, blind for a long time, deservedly defrauded Of his honor the divinity, its own; Yet hitherto he plucked and will pluck perennial Nectar, a new Divinity on the Olympian axis. By which the more Gregory, the third and tenth heir Of this name, has eternal praise. He justly and piously sanctioned that this Norbert too, Holding the golden temples of heaven, be honored in this world: And now altars, now temples, rise from his name: And duly invoked he brings sure help to the pious.

[6] The same and other Pontiffs augmented the cult, The cult thus instituted, the same Gregory (as we have already begun to hear from Le Mire) augmented, a plenary Indulgence being granted for the feast day of St. Norbert, up to the year of Jubilee exclusively. The same Clement VIII granted for seven years; but Paul V made it perpetual in the year 1606, and then in the year 1617 permitted it to be transferred with the feast. Afterward Gregory XV approved and confirmed the Prayer and Lessons of the second Nocturn, to be recited on the feast day of St. Norbert, in the year 1621: Urban VIII also approved the transfer of the feast to the XIth day of July by a diploma granted in the year 1625, and printed by Chrysostom Vander Sterre in the Echo of St. Norbert page 173. Meanwhile when the same Urban VIII had inserted the feast into the Roman Breviary and Missal, and had wished it to be celebrated under a semidouble rite; he withdrew the said solemnity from the XIth day of July to this VIth of June, the true natal day of the Saint; on which day likewise, in today's Roman Martyrology, before all is placed the memory of Saint Norbert etc. But the very Office under the rite of a Double to be celebrated by all in the future was sanctioned by Clement X in the year 1672. up to the rite of a Double, sanctioned by Clement X. When the Reverend Father Charles Alexander of Manderscheid, then at Rome Penitentiary for Belgium, my onetime instructor in the novitiate of the Society, sent me a copy of the Decree, he added a letter in these words: If this matter was not perfected by me, certainly it was begun and started by my persuasions and counsels. I was the first some years ago to suggest that they should attempt the matter, which would have very little difficulty; I wrote to you, that through the Abbot of St. Michael you should move the others to the hope of obtaining that, which other Orders had already obtained almost all for their Founders; I finally induced our Norbertines here, that through the Abbot of Strahov they should at Prague obtain commendatory letters from the Emperor: which being obtained, and the commendation of the whole matter being undertaken by the Cardinal Landgrave, at length, by the highest industry of the Procurator general of the Premonstratensians, the business was most happily accomplished.

[7] Thus he, who afterward, when the Vatican Portico, drawn out to the supreme enclosure, was being adorned with statues of the Saints, and he had heard that among them very many Founders of religious Orders were reckoned; first suggested to the curators of that work, A statue in the Vatican portico. and by arguments and with all the favor he had with them, the Father General John Paul Oliva being also interposed, persuaded, that a place should be given to St. Norbert; about whom no Italian would otherwise have thought, because among them the Order is now known no otherwise than from a few of the younger men of the Tongerlo monastery in Brabant, dwelling at Rome by turns for the sake of studies, under a President sent from the same place, and a stranger there as much as they. To these honors to be paid to St. Norbert his own Order had played a prelude, applying that which is now common to all Abbots and Bishops, to its own Founder too; namely an armorial Shield with a Motto, such as I have placed at the front of this Commentary, taken from the penultimate of the pictures representing the Life of the Saint by parts; where he lies composed in the bier, An armorial shield with a Motto whence the funeral tapestry flowing down along the sides is adorned, by the custom of this age, with a Shield such as I said, so composed, that it seems to embrace the sum of all the things which are to be explained by us at greater length about the Blessed Man. For the field of the whole shield, red, is first wholly divided by a white Cross, above which, emerging here and there, a branch of Palm and of Olive flank in the middle the eucharistic Chalice with the sacred Host: at what all these things look, the Motto indicates, "By Faith and Patience"; the principal virtues namely of the Saint, with which he bore the Cross of the Lord constantly; and a glorious triumpher over enemies both visible and invisible, but an excellent reformer of peace wherever he betook himself, the mysteries of the Christian faith, both elsewhere adapted to Norbert from the custom of our age. and at Antwerp despised or even trodden under foot, he restored to the place of due veneration. The studies too of each Life, the Active and the Contemplative, which are likewise represented in the preliminary image to the aforesaid pictures, he so beautifully joined, that he held their highest summit constantly, until he arrived there, where, the laborious action ceasing, the blessed vision alone occupies him of the mysteries firmly believed and constantly preached.

§ II. The Life written under the care of Hugh, the first companion of the Saint, and successor in the Premonstratensian government, with Analecta. Histories of the translations made in this century, and Corollaries.

[8] As to what pertains to the Life, my Predecessors had already long ago begun to collect from various manuscript codices the primary Acts. The Acts are given from very many Mss. They had also received the Acts printed with the Lives of some other Fathers of the Premonstratensian Order in the year 1608 by the types of the Monastery of Louka on the river Dyje (which is of the same Order near Znojmo, in Moravia, very near the borders of Austria) by Sigismund Kohel, Abbot there. But since that Life was, as it seems, by the will of the Editor truncated in many things, and elsewhere changed; that being passed over, we refer ourselves to the primary text; the care of inquiring after which more solicitously freed his people and us, the Most Ample and Most Reverend Lord John Chrysostom Vander Sterre, Abbot of the Church of St. Michael in this city of Antwerp, Vicar General of the Premonstratensian Order throughout Brabant etc., our singular friend and patron of studies. He removed that solicitude, by communicating the life of his holy Founder, such as he had had printed, but did not yet allow to be published; written by a Premonstratensian Canon, but his most worthy successor Norbert van Couwerven ordered it to be published in the year 1656. For that printing had been prepared, the Manuscript Codices being collated among themselves to the number of fifteen, namely, the Antwerp, Grimbergen, Parc, Averbode, Trunchinium, Ninove, Bern, Heylissem, Nijmegen, Morinian, Steinfeld, Knechtsteden, Chotěšov, Marchtal, Wilten, and others, so that its text might be exhibited in all things pure and sincere. The Author of this Life was a Canon of the Order, and more probably of the arch-monastery of Prémontré, aided by several. For, as he says toward the end of the Prologue, by diligent examination it was provided, that, certain men coming together into one, who had from the beginning continually conversed with him, the individual things should be written down in that manner and order, as the assent of several should have approved.

[9] by his own eyewitness faith and that of others The first who was present from the beginning can be reckoned Hugh, before the Premonstratensian habitation was begun the companion of Norbert, and afterward in the same Prémontré the first successor while he was alive and consenting, and surviving him for thirty years: who still, when these Acts were completed, was extant among the living, is established from num. 142, where is narrated an apparition of the Saint made to him, and there is added this prayer: May almighty God grant, that according to the understanding of the promise he may come to him: and whom he left as companion and successor and partaker of the wretched and penal tribulation of this world, may He make him a consort in the joys of eternal felicity, and in the gifts of the blessing received from God. Therefore by the incitement, or favor and help of Hugh, these Acts were written, according to those things which we either read written by others, chiefly of the successor Hugh: (says the Author in the Prologue) or for a great part saw and see: and below; The things which I learned about him, narrated by others with legitimate and faithful testimony, and know, I will compress summarily. From this Life the I Lesson for the II Nocturn was approved by Gregory XV, as if that Life were the one which Blessed Hugh the Premonstratensian, successor of the Saint, wrote: which I believe could be presumed more easily by those so suggesting than proved; certainly no one afterward assumed it as probable, and the praise of pious and holy conversation inserted in num. 27 forbids us to believe, that a humble man should have so written about himself.

[10] Moreover, that the Life was written by the favor and help of Hugh, as I said, the Verses placed by the Author at the end can be a testimony, with this beginning:

Happy Norbert, the first Father of this Order: I rejoice that, Father Hugh, you favor his merits. besides which no other seems to have existed.

[11] To the primary Life, of which I spoke, ordered to be printed by the aforepraised Chrysostom Vander Sterre, the same man had resolved to add his Annotations, and had indicated this on the last little leaf: and, the more prolix Notes of others to the life being omitted. but prevented by death he died on the XXVIIIth of July in the year 1652. But what he had left undone, Polycarp de Hertoghe, a Canon of the same monastery, brought to effect, with very long Notations elaborated, which he also established with the sentences of the holy Fathers, and from time to time corroborated with Theological dissertations. The benevolent Reader will be able to read them in the aforesaid edition, as well as the various Readings adjoined by Chrysostom. I, in our manner content with having annotated certain things making for history, and having indicated a few diversities of reading of some moment, judged that longer digressions should be avoided, lest the mass of the work grow immensely. For the same cause also I will contract into a briefer form the two more prolix Tractates, concerning the history of the Translated Relics, the Translation of the sacred body from Magdeburg to Prague, and of some Relics to Antwerp, of which the one the Canons of the Convent of Strahov at Prague published once and again and a third time more augmented; the other the aforepraised Chrysostom published at Antwerp, and called it the Echo of St. Norbert triumphant in the year 1629. Here too it will come to us to be said, how about the year 1654 the successor of Chrysostom, the aforenamed Norbert, received part of the sacred Brain from Prague, which today we venerate together with other Relics of the holy Patriarch, enclosed in a large and most elegant silver chest.

[12] and certain more recent miracles. Peter Baptist Burgus, having embraced the history of the Swedish War in three books, after narrating the destruction of the city of Magdeburg, wrought by the Imperialists under the leader Tilly in the year 1631 in the month of May, besides the many illustrious ornaments of that City which he had enumerated, says, it had the most precious of all, the body of St. Norbert, which… we have seen transferred to Prague, famous for the number and quality of miracles, which is believed to have saved that very city from destruction, while it was in it, even by the heretics themselves. But no collection of miracles of this kind has hitherto gone to press: certain more illustrious ones the modern Abbot of Strahov, the Most Reverend Lord Vitus Seipol, has submitted to us, which you will find at the end. Here I note, as a matter most worthy of consideration, that the Cathedral edifice of Magdeburg, in which the Saint lay for so many years, and the Marian monastery founded by him, almost alone survived the voracity of the flames, afterward cast into the City by the angry soldiery. The first Translation or more truly Invention at Magdeburg, or Elevation, from the monument in which the Saint lay dishonored among the heretics, made on the IIIrd of December 1626, is inscribed only in the Gallican Martyrology of Saussay: nor does it have or had any cult in the Order. But that which in the year 1627 at Prague was most solemnly made on the IInd day of May, The Translation on the 4th Sunday after Easter. the IVth Sunday after Easter, is celebrated throughout the Order in Spain; and is inscribed in the Gallican Martyrology of Saussay, and in the sacred memorials of the kingdom of Bohemia published by our Crüger. The Deposition then into a new chapel, and to be described below in its place, was made in the following year on the XXIst of May, the IVth Sunday of Easter likewise: and it was decreed, that the same Sunday every year, but not the second day of May,

should be the anniversary for the people of Prague by that very title. Furthermore, as many as afterward arranged the Lives of the Saints through the Order of the year, More recent Lives indicated: in various languages and places, did not omit to insert into them some Epitome of the life: others who published it separately are hidden from me, except John Baptist Schellemberg of our Society, who published some, not yet seen by me, in Latin at Augsburg in the year 1645, as our Society's Library, augmented by Nathanael Sotwell, has it. Finally, after the History of the Translations, I will give two Corollaries; the first on the institution of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg, two Corollaries being added. and the Acts of the First Bishops and the Primacy of Germany granted to the successors after the age of St. Norbert: the other on the Abbey of St. Michael of Antwerp, undertaken by St. Norbert, and today most flourishing, and the series of its Abbots, their Acts, and Epitaphs.

§ III. On the Feast of the Saint, transferred from the order of a Semidouble to that of a Double.

[12] After the Translation, of which above, the zeal of the Premonstratensians, especially of those of Strahov, grew daily, for extolling the cult of their holy Founder to the highest degree of ecclesiastical veneration. Therefore Jerome the Abbot of these, In the year 1671 in the year 1671, on the XXVIIth day of June, wrote the following supplications to the Vicar of Christ, then Clement X.

Most Blessed Father.

Since it is just that the holy Founders of religious Orders and Standard-bearers, the Abbot of Strahov supplicating Clement IX, after the completed warfare of a glorious Life triumphing with Christ, be honored with the greatest possible veneration by the Sons, the followers of their Institutes, to whom they pre-showed the paths of religious life; and that no study and labor be omitted, by which God may be glorified more and more daily in those same Saints His own; I, the unworthy Abbot of the Church of Strahov in the city of Prague, and Visitor of the Premonstratensian Order throughout Bohemia and other adjacent Provinces, Custodian of the Relics of St. Norbert resting in our Church, prostrated for the most humble kisses of the sacred Feet to your Sanctity, beg with most ardent prayers most submissively, that the one grace most desired by me and by our whole Premonstratensian family, be conferred from the most liberal bosom of your most clement Sanctity. That the Feast of St. Norbert, Founder of our Premonstratensian Religion, Archbishop of Magdeburg, throughout the whole Church, he asks for a double feast for St. Norbert, committed to your Apostolic government, you would most clemently order to be elevated to the honor of a Double Feast. Not a few Founders of Religious Orders have already deserved that honor from the supreme Vicars of Christ in the world. That the same of veneration accrue to our holy Patriarch, the whole Premonstratensian Order, always most submissive and most devoted to the Apostolic See, most ardently sighs; and trusts that it will sometime obtain its wishes, by the favoring clemency of your Sanctity. This is urged by the lavish merits of St. Norbert toward the Roman Church, when, fulfilling the title of Archbishop of Magdeburg and Primate of Germany, accompanying the Emperor Lothair, by his counsel and aid, he manfully asserted and defended the authority of Innocent II the legitimately elected Pontiff, against the violence of Peter Leonis, violently occupying the supreme summit of honor in the city and the world, out of his piety toward the Apostolic See.

[13] the intercession of the Emperor also being employed, The antiquity of the Canonical Premonstratensian Order supplicates for the same benefit: which, planted by St. Norbert very many years ago, now exceeding five centuries, once extended its branches from sea to sea: and although in the Germanic Provinces, by the raging atrocities of heresy, it suffered destruction in many places, for the defense of the Roman Catholic faith; yet again it takes more ample increases, serving God and itself not only by the leisure of pious contemplation, and the diligent guarding of the regular observances; but also warring for the Church by the study of the active life. The whole Kingdom of Bohemia implores the Sanctity of your Clemency for the grace of the same favor, which by the title of public and singular Patron, now more than forty years, venerates the same Saint; in whose Metropolis too, in his bodily part, he rests above Mount Zion, illustrious even now with the great glory of miracles. The same desires the whole of Germany, whose Apostle he once was while he lived, also adorned with the title of Primate by Innocent II at Rome. Finally our Emperor Leopold greatly wishes this honor to be paid to the Saint, most pious toward the Saints, but especially toward the Tutelaries of his Kingdoms, and most zealous for the propagation of the Catholic religion and faith: by whose gracious intervention, to be most powerful with your Sanctity, I rejoice that the most humble prayers of my unworthiness are aided: and at the most clement command of your Sanctity's Power, I hope it will come to pass, that our Premonstratensian Order, which through so many centuries has transcribed to heaven several souls, illustrious for the praise of sanctity and the glory of miracles; yet has hitherto rarely enjoyed the benefit of Canonization; may at least under the most auspicious Pontificate of your Sanctity, rejoice in the honor of its Founder, increased throughout the whole Church of God. The friend of God Norbert, triumphing in the heavens, will repay the obedience of the aforesaid honor: and the more solemn the Office with which his sacred memory is celebrated throughout the Church of God, the more he will press on in beseeching God, that your Sanctity, with God aiding and prospering, may govern the whole flock of the Christian name warring on earth, as long and as happily as possible. Which the whole Premonstratensian Order, most submissive to your Sanctity, with unwearied prayers assiduously demands from God; and I, the most unworthy and most humble son of your Sanctity, with all my Religious of the Church of Strahov, at the altar of the same St. Patriarch Norbert, will not omit to beseech those above daily, as hitherto; that the Bark of St. Peter, committed to the governance of your Sanctity, against all the waves of adversities, by the help of the Clementine Anchor, may long persist established and unshaken.

[14] The same Abbot had before given letters to the Emperor, by which the aforesaid commendatory letters were obtained, in this tenor:

Most August and most invincible Emperor, Lord, most Clement Lord.

Since most Founders of Religious Orders have, after their deaths, attained on earth that honor, the one already humbly entreated, that their Feasts recurring annually are honored with the rite of a Double throughout the whole Church; yet that honor has not yet fallen to St. Norbert, Patron of the renowned kingdom of Bohemia, who had founded the sacred and Canonical Premonstratensian Order, already five centuries ago; I, the unworthy Abbot of the Church of Strahov, and Custodian of the most sacred Heavenly one, resting in his bodily part with Us, with all my Religious of Strahov, with whom the bones of the most holy Father rest, and the whole Premonstratensian Order, supplicating your sacred Imperial Majesty most submissively and most humbly, approach; that you would not most clemently disdain to promote and prosper by your protection our weak efforts in this business with the Apostolic See: so that, with the same consenting, the aforesaid Feast of St. Norbert may henceforth be celebrated throughout the whole Church with the rite of a Double. The friend of God triumphing in the heavens will render abundant thanks by his intervention for the study of the aforesaid piety expended on him: and We at his altar daily, for the long-lived health and most happy government of your Imperial Majesty, and for the peace and tranquility of the Kingdoms and Provinces subject to it, will not cease to beseech the divine Power, as hitherto, day and night etc.

[15] Moved by these things the most August Emperor not long after directed these letters to the Supreme Pontiff.

Most Blessed Father.

There has recourse to Us… Jerome Abbot of Strahov; and led by the example of other Religious Orders, and commending him by an epistle, that the Feasts of the holy Founders are celebrated with the rite of a Double throughout the whole Church, that the same of veneration may accrue to St. Norbert too, he has humbly set forth our intervention thereon. To whose desire we subscribe the more inclined, since we ourselves, nay the whole renowned Kingdom of ours of Bohemia, dedicated to the special patronage of that Saint, luculently experiences his suffrages; and so with the greater effort we can, we are zealous for the glory and cult of the same; requiring of your Sanctity with filial observance and obediently, that you would not disdain to hear in this point the prayers of the aforesaid Abbot and his conspicuous Premonstratensian Order, and to adorn that holy Patriarch with that honor and solemnity, which has fallen to the Founders of other Orders. Which as the eminent merits and sanctity of that divine Man of themselves demand, so it will come to our said Kingdom too, and to the sacred Order itself, this grace being obtained, with singular solace. So We too, hoping for the effect of this petition, your Sanctity etc. At Laxenburg on the XXth day of May 1671.

[16] Furthermore, since the Abbot knew that causes of this kind are not defined immediately by the Pontiff, but referred to the sacred Congregation of Rites; he also had letters written to the Cardinal Presidents of that body, that they might be instructed about the supports of his cause: and he had them written in this manner, through the Procurator general of his Premonstratensian Order, Br. Francis Bruyrette.

Most Eminent and most Reverend Lords.

That the feast of St. Norbert, Institutor of the Premonstratensian Canons, Archbishop of Magdeburg, eminent Herald of the Divine Word, Apostle of Antwerp and Saxony, singular Patron of Bohemia, most famous for miracles both in life and after death, may be raised from a Semidouble to a Double, the following seem to urge.

I. The splendor of his Birth. For from the stock of Kings and Emperors, on account of the nobility of the Saint, he had as Father Heribert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, kinsman of Henry the Younger, then reigning; but as Mother, Hedwig, daughter of Eudes Duke of Burgundy, descended from St. Robert King of France.

II. His wonderful conversion, his wonderful conversion, not unlike the conversion of St. Paul, whom he most closely imitated in his life. For struck by a thunderbolt, thrown from his horse, to God calling, through a voice from heaven saying, "Norbert, whither do you go? whither do you hasten? it is hard for you to kick against the goad"; he answered: "Lord, what do you wish me to do?" And immediately changed into another man, by preaching the word of God, by recalling innumerable heretics to the faith; sinners to penance; the dissenting to peace and concord, he showed himself a true vessel of election, to bear the name of Christ before the nations, Kings, etc. Whence also the Most Illustrious and most Reverend Lord Francis Bishop of Bellay, published the Life of that Saint under this title, "The Apostolic Man"; showing him in all things most similar to the Apostle.

III. The profession of Evangelical poverty. For Norbert, thinking that saying of the Sacred Gospel said by name to himself: Evangelical poverty, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and come, and follow me"; the most rich ecclesiastical Benefices which he had being resigned into the hands of his Archbishop, the Bishopric of Cambrai being humbly and generously refused, distributed all his goods to the poor, only the sacred vestments for celebrating being retained for himself, naked following the naked footsteps of Christ Jesus.

IV. His incredible zeal for souls. For Norbert, as a good soldier of Christ, his zeal for souls, girding himself for the work of the Gospel; the power of preaching the word of God everywhere on earth being received from the Supreme Bishop of the Church Gelasius II; walking through cities, villages, castles; argues with sinners, beseeches, rebukes, in all patience and doctrine; and that with such great study and fervor, that it was written of him, that neither harsh winter, nor hunger, nor weariness of the body could call him away from the holy purpose of preaching.

V. His faith in God proved by a miracle; while he himself celebrating in a certain crypt, miracles, took unharmed, with great faith in God, a large spider, fallen into the chalice already consecrated, (since, what should be done in this case, had not yet been determined by the Church) together with the precious Blood; which by the salutary

he believed the poison to have lost its strength by this salutary antidote: proving true in himself that of Mark XVI; "And if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them"; whence also that celebrated saying of his time: In Norbert eminent is faith; in Bernard of Clairvaux, revelations, charity; in Milo Bishop of Thérouanne, disciple of Norbert, humility.

VI. The revelations made to him by God, and the predictions of things to come. For first the place, in which he should found the first church of his Order, was pre-shown to him by Christ the Lord, glittering on a cross with seven solar rays; whence also the Order itself received the name of Prémontré ("pre-shown"). Secondly, the faith defended, the most Blessed Virgin pre-showed to Norbert, passing the night in prayer, the form of the white habit to be worn by the Premonstratensians. Thirdly, to Norbert solicitous about choosing a Rule for himself and his followers; and exploring the divine good pleasure with fasts, tears, and prayers; Blessed Augustine appeared, and holding out to him his Rule, said: He whom you see is Augustine, I am the Bishop of Hippo; behold you have the Rule which I wrote; under which if your Brothers my Sons shall war well, they will safely stand before Christ in the terror of the last judgment. Fourthly, at Cologne, where the bodies of Saints Gereon and the other Martyrs of Christ were buried, he learned by divine means. Fifthly, he predicted a future famine in Westphalia, that celebrated Augsburg sedition in the time of the Emperor Lothair, and many other things.

VII. The extinction of the Sacramentarian heresy of Tanchelin, which had infected all Brabant; whence also the Brabantines, and especially the people of Antwerp, hold, honor, and venerate him as their Apostle.

VIII. His illustrious deeds in the Archbishopric. For knowing that it was said by Christ the Lord to the Apostles, the Church aided, and to the Bishops their successors; "You are the light of the world"; he recalled the Saxons and Wends from the darkness of paganism and heresies into the admirable light of Christ; he restored ecclesiastical discipline, but especially celibacy in his Diocese by postliminy; he reclaimed and vindicated the goods of his Church from unjust possessors: and, what should not be omitted, he strenuously defended Innocent II against Anacletus the Antipope, not only in Germany (of which he was Primate) but also in the Council of Reims; and coming to Rome with the Emperor Lothair (whose Chancellor he was), restored the Pontiff himself to his See, and suppressed the schism.

IX. The signal miracles, with which God wished to illustrate him: which are so many and so great, the Order founded most ample, that it suffices to have said of him, that he put demons to flight, healed the sick, gave light to the blind, raised the dead. For that three were raised by him to life, we have from authors worthy of faith, but especially from the Annals of the Imperial Monastery of Berge, of the Order of Saint Benedict, of the diocese of Magdeburg, which conclude the epitome of the Life of our holy Patriarch Norbert with these words. Norbert, returned to his Church, full of the Holy Spirit, the raiser of three dead men, rested in a blessed end. Finally, almost all the Founders even of more recent Religious Orders (among whom most recently St. Peter Nolasco, by a decree of the sacred Congregation held on the twenty-third of July last past) are celebrated with that cult throughout the whole church: but Saint Norbert is, for nearly six hundred years, the Institutor of the Canonical Order, according to the Rule of Blessed Augustine: which Order indeed, most widely diffused, the Apostolic confirmation being received from Honorius the second, refulgent with much glory of merits (as Adrian IV says, who testifies that he was of the said Order, in a Bull given to the Premonstratensians) and redolent with the grace of Sanctity, extended its branches from sea to sea; so that in the time of Clement VI (as is also established from his Bull) besides seven Archbishoprics and nine Bishoprics incorporated into the Premonstratensian Order itself, it had 1332 cloisters of Canons, but 400 of Nuns or Canonesses, with three hundred and fifty Provostships (parish Churches, which were without number, not being counted); which monasteries indeed, those being excepted which in Palestine, Cyprus, Hungary, Saxony, Livonia, Denmark, Sweden, England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Frisia, Zeeland, and various other parts of Europe, were extinguished by the fury of the Turks and heretics; even now in Gaul, Spain, Belgium, Germany, and Poland exist in great number, and praised by many: distinguished into twenty-eight Provinces: in most of which, beyond fifty, sixty, eighty, nay one hundred and twenty Canons exist, serving God according to the Institute of Saint Augustine; but outside, in parish churches, which to this day they possess by the thousands in the said Kingdoms: watching over the salvation of themselves and their neighbors: so that it is no wonder, if Clement Pope VIII of happy memory said that the Premonstratensian Order is a perpetual seminary of strong men, and champions of the Church; and Aubert Le Mire, Bishop of Antwerp, named the said Monasteries of the Order, fecund Seminaries of Parish-priests or Pastors.

X. Which since they are so, we easily hope that he, of whom the Church sings; moved by which the Pontiff and Cardinals "Norbert, a lamp burning and shining placed upon the candlestick, shone to all who were in the house," will no longer lie hidden under the bushel; but by the suffrage of my most Eminent and most Reverend Lords, by our most Holy Lord, like a burning lamp, that it may shine more and more to all who are in the house, that is the Church of Christ; will at length sometime be placed upon the candlestick of a Double feast; and thus the repeated prayers of the most August Emperor Leopold, to this end offered to our most Holy Lord, through his Orator the most Eminent Cardinal Landgrave, will be kindly heard. And the whole Premonstratensian Order etc. Which may God etc.

The cause thus instructed prevailed, as it deserved; and the things usually observed on such an occasion being observed, there came forth a Decree of this tenor from the sacred Congregation, soon published everywhere. they decree a Double feast, in the year 1672. Our most Holy Lord, Lord Clement Pope X, by the counsel of the most Eminent Lords Cardinals, set over the Sacred Congregation of Rites, held on the IIIrd day of September current, at the prayers of the Imperial Majesty, offered to the same his Sanctity through the most Eminent Lord Cardinal Landgrave of Hesse, commanded; that the Office of St. Norbert, Bishop and Confessor, Institutor of the Premonstratensian Order, which has hitherto been recited under the Semidouble rite, in future be recited by all the faithful of Christ, both Secular and Regular of both sexes, who are bound to the canonical Hours, under the Double rite by precept. On this day the VIIth of the same month of September, 1672.

F. M. Bishop of Porto Cardinal Brancaccio. In place of the ✠ Seal. Bernardin Casali, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. At Rome, from the Printing-house of the Reverend Apostolic Chamber 1672.

§ IV. Encomia given to St. Norbert and his Order by writers of the same age.

[17] St. Bernard approves the spirit of Norbert, First, in this Paragraph, we deservedly call St. Bernard, who although he did not everywhere approve the opinion of St. Norbert in the question about Antichrist Epist. 56; yet congratulates himself, that on such an occasion he deserved to see his face, and to draw very many things from the heavenly pipe, namely his mouth. But writing to Bruno the Cologne Elect, asking counsel about his election whether he ought to acquiesce in it, in Epistle 8, he thus concludes: You have Lord Norbert, whom present you present can better question about such things: for that man is known to be readier for us in opening divine mysteries, by as much as he is also nearer to God. The year was, when Bernard wrote these things, 1132, and professes himself most closely bound to his Order: the year before the last but one of St. Norbert's life: but this man being long dead, writing to the Premonstratensian Abbot Epist. 252. Your Order, he says, I cherished and promoted always as much as was in me; which then he proves by luculent arguments: and finally, all things being excused which had given occasion for complaints, he professes that his friendship with them is and will be indissoluble. I will cleave to you, he says, even if you are unwilling; I will cleave, even if I myself am unwilling. Once I bound myself with a strong bond, with charity not feigned, that which never fails. With the troubled I will be peaceful, to the troublers too I will give place to wrath, lest I give it to the devil. I will be conquered by injuries, I will conquer by obedience: I will offer to the unwilling, I will add to the ungrateful, I will honor even those who despise me. And now my soul is sad, that on whatever occasion I may have offended you; and it will be sad, until you relieve it by your indulgence. If you delay; I will go and excuse myself; I will persevere knocking before the doors; I will press, in season, out of season, until I either deserve or extort a blessing.

[18] The friendship contracted with St. Norbert had driven such deep roots into the heart of that Saint, Abelard attacked by both especially from that time, when they had joined the arms of sacred preaching against Peter Abelard. He although in the year 1120 or 21, in the Synod of Soissons, had himself given his own book to the fire with his own hands, the Legate of the Apostolic See Cono so ordering; yet continued to complain of that judgment as perverse, and to teach and defend the same things as before; meanwhile drawing forth his pen, dipped in the gall of bitterness, from time to time against both Saints, he turned the true praises of each into reproach. So it was nothing other than to give testimony to virtue; as when in Epist. 1 he complains that new Apostles were stirred up against him by his rivals, in whom the world greatly believed: of whom the one glories that he had revived the Life of the Regular Canons; the other, of the Monks. But while in the Sermon on the 10. of the Baptist he calumniates them, that proceeding from solitude to the crowds, he bears testimony to both, as they swelled with the feigned name of Religion, so also by the simulation of miracles, they desired to seem wonderful by grace; he is convicted of having erred in both and about both, if not also of having lied, from their Acts, and from the infallible judgment of the Church, ordering them to be honored as Saints; and finally from the sentence of Innocent II, passed in the year 1140 against his errors, approving that the Saints did not impudently, but very prudently, in that running through the world preaching, defaming him as much as they could, they rendered him not a little contemptible to ecclesiastical as well as secular powers, and disseminated such sinister things about both his see and his past life, namely dishonored by lusts openly known, although then perhaps corrected, that they turned away from him even the chief of his friends.

[19] even while he calumniates them, But so far is it that he obtains belief, when he asserts that those highest miracles of raising the dead too had been vainly attempted, which indeed Norbert had recently done, and he himself wondered and laughed at it; that even for this reason we believe it the more truly narrated, although the Author of the Life kept silent about it; whose only care was, on account of the obstinate impudence of certain infidels and impious men, as he professes in the Prologue, to compress briefly those things which are known to all, nor would they themselves with any wickedness dare to deny. I would say, that here Abelard is reproached; did I not believe this Life to have been written after his death, suffered at Cluny in the year 1142, afterward corrected and reconciled. and Peter of Cluny testify of him, writing to Innocent II, that with St. Bernard, the former complaints being put to sleep (and so also his heresies retracted) he peaceably came to agreement; and would doubtless have done the same with Norbert

had he lived, and would have recanted the calumnies hurled at him: for the remaining three years of his life he passed most holily, and died most piously, as may be read in the epistle of the aforepraised Peter to Heloise, then an equally holy Abbess, but formerly the disciple and beloved of Abelard.

[20] Herimann Abbot of St. Martin of Tournai writing in the year 1141, But I come to the more distinct and more explained eulogies of Norbert and the Premonstratensian Order by various authors; among whom in the order of writing the more ancient is Herimann, Abbot of St. Martin of Tournai: who at Rome about the year 1141 wove a prolix account of the restoration of his monastery, filled with the knowledge of various matters, such as is read in the Acherian Spicilegium vol. 12. He, when he had narrated the fraudulent seizure of Pope Paschal II, to extort the approval of investitures, wrought in the year 1111 by Henry IV; A certain Cleric, he says, by name Norbert, who in that seizure had been Chaplain of the Emperor, seeing such great wickedness of his lord the King, led by penance, prostrated himself at the feet of the Lord Pope; and absolution being received from him, was at least so far converted, he relates on what occasion Norbert began to be converted at Rome, that the Bishopric of Cambrai offered to him in the year 1113, as not to be held without the stain of Imperial investiture, he refused; but not long after he was touched from heaven like Paul, and leaving the secular life, came into France; and finding in the Bishopric of Laon a certain solitary place, which is called Prémontré; there began to serve God under the Rule of St. Augustine, nay much more rigid and strict: and so by God's grace in a short time he profited, that we see no one after the Apostles to have made so great fruit in the Church today. For although the thirtieth year of his conversion is not yet come, already we have heard that nearly a hundred monasteries have been built by his followers, through various parts of the world, so that even in Jerusalem their Rule is observed. For, to be silent of others, in the city of Laon there was committed to him by Lord Bartholomew the Bishop a certain poor little church, built in honor of St. Martin: in which the same Norbert, placing a few of his Brothers, and how quickly his Order was propagated throughout the whole world. set over them as Abbot a religious man, by name Walter: to whom God conferred such great grace, that today in that very church nearly five hundred Brothers seem to dwell; and already from it nearly ten other monasteries have proceeded. But Norbert himself, afterward made Archbishop in the city of Magdeburg, in the time of the Emperor Lothair, who succeeded Henry, died.

[21] Let Laurence of Liège succeed Herimann, of the same Benedictine Profession as that man, Laurence of Liège before the year 1144 in the History of the Bishops of Verdun, written for Albero the Bishop before the year in which the latter died, 1144, and to be found in the same volume of the aforepraised Spicilegium. There he narrates, how the same Bishop Albero, having long tried in vain to restore the vigor of the monastic order in certain places, extirpated the degenerate and arid plantation with the iron of cutting, and inserted there a new one of Clerics of the monastic Order, whom Norbert, Archbishop of Magdeburg, a great man in the Church, had delegated to him from the Professors of his Order. when he had treated of the Premonstratensians, brought to Verdun, There exists in the same place an Epistle of Albero himself to Pope Innocent, in which he gives the reason, why in the church of St. Paul, near the city, which through the carelessness and irreligion of the few Monks dwelling there, had been brought to such great infamy, that it was now said to be not the house of God, but a certain brothel; he placed the poor of Christ of the church of Prémontré, living praiseworthily according to the Rule of Blessed Augustine.

[22] This epistle being related, when the Author had also treated of the Cistercians introduced by the same Bishop, and toward the reformation of the Ecclesiastical and monastic order, had said first indeed that Simoniacal avarice was cut down by the sword of Peter; he vehemently extols both them and the Cistercians: then had compared the new Religion of the Carthusians to the Eagle flying to heaven; that we might have, he says, the animal of the laboring calf and of him offering in the sacrifice of God, and likewise of the man prudently reasoning of divine and human things, there followed those two Cherubim, spreading their wings in the middle of the Church, and with faces turned to the Propitiatory mutually regarding each other; that is, two most illustrious Orders, protecting the Church by their devotion, and with hearts turned to God emulating each other in mutual charity: of which one, the Cistercian, under the leader Bernard, the Abbot of a most holy name, repaired the Monastic order, already almost fallen, to the first norm of the Apostolic life; the other, by merit and by name Prémontré ("pre-shown") from God, begun under the leader Norbert Bishop of Magdeburg, shook the Ecclesiastical order out of the mire of worldly vanity. You would believe these two Orders to be, from the book of the Apocalypse, the two Prophets, sent by God near the end of the world, and clothed in the sackcloth of penance; the two Olives of heavenly clemency, and the two Candlesticks of divine grace: so they torment themselves in all things, so they water the world with the word of life, so they illuminate with the light of merits. These two, with God cooperating and all the pious helping, have already profited so much, that the Cistercian indeed, in the thirty years of that time, has already grown into two hundred Abbeys, of great name, merit, and number; and has already begun to be diffused even into the barbarous Sarmatians and the farthest Scythians; but Prémontré through these twenty years has grown up into nearly seventy Abbeys.

[23] And thus far indeed those ancient, but only recently printed writers: but not yet have the books of the Antikeimena seen the light, inscribed to Pope Eugenius III, Anselm Bishop of Havelberg writing to Pope Eugenius III, and so written before the year 1153, by Anselm, Bishop of the Church of Havelberg, in lower Saxony under the Metropolitan of Magdeburg. The original Ms. codex, and perhaps the only one in the whole world, and worthy to be published in a more augmented Library of the holy Fathers, our most friendly Henry Julius Baron de Blum, Imperial Counselor in the tribunal of Appeals at Prague, possesses, from whom too we often praise the copy of the Hieronymian Martyrology submitted to Florentinius, the other one. He, when he had lent that his Codex to our Herman Horst, Confessor of the Empress-widow Eleonora, to be read; and that man had given it to Reinold Dehn, likewise a learned Priest of our Society and known by books (of both of whom may God have the souls) to be inspected; he transcribed for us with his own hand from lib. 1 cap. 10, the following fragment on the subject which we are treating.

[24] He admires the swift propagation of the Norbertine institute: There arose in the same profession namely the Canonical and in the imitation of the Apostolic life a certain religious Priest, by name Norbert, in the time of Pope Gelasius: who, on account of his religion, and the many enormities and schisms which were then being made in the western Church, received from the Roman Pontiff Gelasius letters and authority to preach. He, in his times most famous and most renowned in religion, traveled through various provinces preaching, collected no small throng of religious, instituted many congregations, and informed them to the perfection of the Apostolic life by word and example. Who also had such great grace before God and men, that they called themselves truly blessed, who could cleave to him. Afterward in the Church of Magdeburg he was made Archbishop, whose holy and venerable body rests in the Church of Blessed Mary, in his Metropolis, where he himself had ordained the Brothers of his Religion. Therefore the religion renewed through him began to have the greatest increases and was diffused everywhere on earth; so that there is almost no province in the Western parts, where a Congregation of the same Religion is not found, France, Germany, Burgundy, Aquitaine, hither Spain, lesser Britain (Brittany), England, Dacia, Saxony, Leutecia , Poland, Bavaria, and Swabia, Pannonia and Hungary, Lombardy, Ligniagia , and Etruria, and Tuscany. For all these provinces have Congregations of the aforesaid Religion, by whose examples and prayers too they trust to be incessantly aided. This same holy Society extends its branches even into the parts of the Orient: for in Bethlehem there is one, and in the place which they call Holy Habakkuk, another Congregation.

[25] as also the Author of the Acts of the Bishop of Laon, And let these few be out of those many, of whom the Author of the Life says in the Prologue, that although they have written down the life and deeds of St. Norbert, yet do not pursue the matter fully and in order; as neither does he who wrote the Deeds of Bartholomew the Bishop, also a coeval Author about the year 1150, not yet thirty years from the Saint's coming into the City of Laon: which Author is not here brought forth, because excerpts from him will make for us Chapter 2 of the Analecta, after that which the people of Cappenberg adjoined; and which alone is hitherto had printed; while that one is sipped by Pagi and Polycarp piecemeal and by parts. But it seems to be that, which Andrew du Chesne, in the Library of French History page 248, calls the History of the restoration of the Church of Laon, under Bishop Bartholomew, in Ms.

* perhaps Sweden? * perhaps Liguria?

§ V. Testimonies of certain Authors of the following century. The old discipline of the Nuns of the Order.

[26] We give the place in the following century first to Robert de Monte, the continuator of Sigebert of Gembloux up to the year 1210, The same praised by Robert de Monte about 1200. writing thus at the year 1131: Under these times the Canonical Premonstratensian Order and the Monastic Cistercian, like two olives in the sight of the Lord, ministered to the world the light of piety and the fatness of devotion; and like fruitful vines, propagated the branches of religion on every side; and through almost all the borders of the Christian world, the odor of good opinion being little by little diffused, built new Abbeys, where before there had not been the worship of God: whence also Brothers sent from Prémontré into Syria and Palestine built some Abbeys. Thus he, having embraced many things in a briefer Eulogy. Somewhat more prolix is the Author of the Annals of Laon, plainly contemporary with Robert; for this is that Anonymous Canon of Laon, by nation (as it seems) an Englishman, the Chronologist of Laon in the year 1228, whose labor is praised by Andrew du Chesne in the Library and page cited above, under the title of a Ms. Chronicle from the Nativity of Christ up to the year 1218, in which there is treated especially of Belgian matters. But that we may think this; Pagi causes it, when from the Annals, as he calls it page 10 he transcribes for us lib. 3 cap. 1 at the year 1121; for such a Chronicle, as we have already heard, easily could and ought to have filled two books, before it came to the times of Bishop Bartholomew. Therefore receive his words here, until someone exhibits those Annals or that Chronicle entire; which we also wish for the History of Bishop Bartholomew.

[27] After a few years that new finder and beginner of new light and of new conversion, not only of exterior, but also of interior brightness, Lord Norbert, coming from Germany into France, with divine grace going before and accompanying, in the Bishopric of Laon, planted that first vine, namely the Premonstratensian: which, rooted and founded in charity, in a more prolix Eulogy. like a fruitful vine extended its shoots, from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth; and with the wine of its strength, which gladdens the heart of man,

has already abundantly inebriated several Princes and Judges of the earth, young men and virgins, old men with the younger; so that, strongly inebriated, they seek nothing else but to praise the name of the Lord, and to sing to Him a new song; since, putting off the old man with his acts, and putting on the new who is created according to God, they utterly cast away carnal allurements; and, as if changed by the Lord from water at the wedding into wine, they forget the things that are behind, and stretch out to those that are before. And so although they bodily abide on earth; yet they savor the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth; saying with the Apostle; "But our conversation is in heaven, where Christ is at the right hand of God"; and joined in mind to the heavenly Seraphim, they burn continually with the love of Christ alone; to whom also they offer their bodies a living host, holy, pleasing to God; displaying the brightness of virtue, by which they shine inwardly, even in their exterior garment. Phil. 3. 20 Thus he, and perhaps several other things in the progress of his history, worthy to see the light, if anyone act as midwife.

[28] James de Vitry Let James de Vitry close the trio of those who in the XIIIth century more prolixly praise the Premonstratensians, or their founder Norbert, (for more do not now occur to us, although we scarcely doubt there are more) from Bishop of Acre in Palestine, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church of Tusculum, who even for that reason was not to be passed over by us; because we are about to give the Life of that very man, who died in the year 1224, on the XXIIIrd of June, a noble Corollary to the Life of St. Mary of Oignies published by the same man, with arguments of a certain cult common to both. Indeed the eulogy of the white Order composed by him, before the year 1244 or Chapter 22 of the Western History "On the Canons of the Premonstratensian Order," Pagi made so much of, that he judged it worthy of laborious commentaries; which however being omitted it will suffice to subjoin a few notes, left by Henschen, who likewise had begun to illustrate the whole Life of St. Norbert with Notes, to be amplified by me with second cares, as far as should seem necessary. The words of de Vitry are these:

[29] A certain a just and God-fearing man, a true worshiper of God, and remaining in his innocence, more fully and distinctly explains the severe discipline of the Order, called Norbert, when by his preaching, like a heavenly pipe and silver trumpet, he had taught many; and turning them to the Lord, had incited those divinely inspired to the fruit of a better life; at length in a place, which is called Prémontré, for the work of himself and his disciples, constituted a peaceful dwelling. But the regular b habit being taken up, that he might war for the Lord according to c the Rule of Blessed Augustine, he constricted in himself and in his disciples the accustomed manner of living, which the aforesaid Regular Canons had up to those times observed more loosely, by adding certain new institutions, and changing certain old ones too. d For the Canons and lay Brothers of the Premonstratensian Order never eat meat, except in illness. From the feast of the holy Cross up to Easter e they fast: with two dishes, after the manner of the Cistercians, they feed in the refectory. f They are not clothed with shirts: they use goat-skins. They sleep clothed in white tunics, and shod with hose. They are vested with white woolen cappas, without any dyeing. On feast days, after the manner of the other Canons, they read nine lessons; but on others, only three at Matins. After the nocturnal Office they return to the dormitory, that they may sleep and rest. At determined times and certain hours they go out to the labors of the hands g. They undertake parish churches and the cures of secular souls in their own persons. All the monasteries of this institution and religion are contained under the one head of the Premonstratensian monastery, to which h every single year to a general Chapter all the Abbots of this Order gather. But they have i Courts and Priories, not only of men, but also of women: in which both clerics and laics, according as is enjoined by their Superiors, dwell.

[30] But from the beginning of the Order and the new plantation, when they still abounded with the precious treasure of poverty, inebriated as it were with the must of the new religion, and fervent with that fire which the Lord sent into the earth that it might burn, embracing the Nuns too, they were so kindled, that not only the neighboring regions, but remote provinces through almost the whole world they set on fire, illuminated, and provoked by the example of their conversation. Whence in a short time many monasteries of this Order and profession, both of Clerics and of Nuns, were built k everywhere, by the largess of Princes and the alms of the faithful, with copious revenues and broad possessions immensely amplified and sufficiently enriched. For with chaste matrons, and holy widows, and virgins devoted to God, like precious stones, fitting for the adornment and beauty of so holy and honest a religion, as if from two walls of men and women joined by one corner-stone, a pleasant dwelling was built for God, and the building of as it were another ark consummated to a cubit: in which the savage animals, and the bestial movements of sensuality, by fasts, vigils, prayers, and other various disciplines, were tamed with such strictness, that the tumult being bridled, having peace, they did not much infest the rectors of the ark. But if at any time they undisciplinedly rose up against them, their heads being dashed against the rock, in the morning, that is at the beginning of the diabolical suggestion, all the sinners of the earth were slain. For the Nuns were so enclosed within the precincts of the monastery, but with great caution. that to them no entrance of men lay open. And since in the choir and church they did not sing, but only in silence gave themselves to prayer, reading their psalters, and saying the Canonical Hours or those of the blessed Virgin Mary secretly with all humility and devotion; there dwelt apart Priests and Clerics of the same Order, men proved and religious, who serving them in the divine Offices, heard their Confessions through windows, and at certain times studied to instruct and inform them with the words of the divine Scriptures.

[31] The Author of the Deeds of Bishop Bartholomew, cap. 2 of the Analecta, speaks of them thus: In a wonderful manner we see them hastening to the monasteries of that institution, so that we believe more than ten thousand women to be contained in them. But the Ms. Chronologist of the Abbey of Parc near Louvain notes that they were placed in Prémontré by St. Norbert himself; and that this is plain from the diploma of Celestine II, given to Hugh the Abbot on the IIIrd of the Ides of December in the year 1143; and among other places where they were had as monasteries, he numbers the upper Cell near Würzburg, and Lesser Au near Ravensburg, and St. Michael of Antwerp, and finally his own Parc, whose second Abbot Philip, writing to St. Hildegard; Pray, he says, venerable Mother, for me, and for the congregation of Brothers and Sisters, which I have to govern, that the Lord grant us peace and concord. Concerning whom the same Chronologist writes thus, They dwelt apart from the men, nor sang in the choir and church, but only in silence gave themselves to prayer; reading their Psalters, and the canonical Hours or those of the blessed Virgin secretly, and with all humility and devotion; and serving in the other works of the Church and the Brothers, by sewing, spinning, weaving, washing.

[32] And all these things indeed most innocently, until the first fervor cooling, as de Vitry adds, These prudently separated afterward. improvident security began to induce torpor and negligence; and turned the windows, through which alone at first conversation was given, into doors. Whence prudently, as the same concludes, in the General Chapter the Premonstratensians unanimously confirmed, that they would not henceforth receive women into their Order. That this Chapter was celebrated in the year 1138, Pagi teaches at this place page 352, and at the same time declares that in it it was not decreed, that there should be absolutely none; but, the Lay-sisters being extinguished, as Bartholomew says, the first author to St. Norbert of receiving them, it seemed good to remove them, and to place them farther off to serve God. A somewhat more fitting and clearer modification perhaps the Chronologist of Parc digs out from the very Statutes of the Order, where dist. 4 cap. 15 it is said, Let no woman be received into our Order as a Sister; except in those places which are from of old deputed to singing Sisters. Therefore only the Lay-sisters, and only those not dwelling in the monasteries themselves, such as the Chronologist described above, the Fathers wished to be excluded; the monasteries of those, to whom it was granted to give themselves to the choir and sacred singing, not being at all extinguished, and those who had a choir being removed farther. which up to these times persevered, according to the Bulls of the Supreme Pontiffs Innocent II, Celestine II, Eugenius III, of whom the last in the year 1154; This too, he says, by the reason of humanity we have considered, and by the present decree to be valid in perpetuity we sanction, that the Sisters, who, through the labor of our Brother Norbert Archbishop of Magdeburg and your exhortation, came to the service of almighty God, and offered themselves to the Lord, may from the goods of your church (of which not the least part is known to have come to that place through them) without anyone's contradiction, now and always obtain the necessaries in the sustenance of temporal things.

[33] Thus far I had written and prepared for the press when the Most Illustrious Lord James Baron le Roy, famous for his published Notitiae of the Marquisate of the Holy Roman Empire and of Gallo-Brabant, brought to me the happily redeemed Chronicle of Alberic the Monk of Trois-Fontaines, [What Alberic of Trois-Fontaines before 1240 says about the beginning of the Order.] and in it exhibited to be read a passage, also described by Andrew du Chesne among the Proofs to lib. 6 of the Genealogical History of the families of Guines, Ardres, Ghent and Coucy, page 333, where the beginning of the Order is explained, at the year 1119, in these words. The Premonstratensian Order began at this time, through a wonderful man Lord Norbert, by nation a German. And the Church was founded under Bishop Bartholomew in the diocese of Laon, and in the presence of the noble man Thomas of Coucy, and his son Enguerrand. This Order had three hundred and fifty Abbeys. This Author ceases to write, in those things which are of his own century most worthy of faith, in the year 1241. He then proceeds to explain genealogically the antiquity of those Nobles, under whom that Premonstratensian House was founded; which is not of our purpose in this place. Wherefore I end this preliminary Commentary with the Annotations of our Henschen, already long ago prepared for the passage of James de Vitry, in these words:

ANNOTATIONS G. H.

the aforesaid Pagi exhibits the Rule in cap. 4 of the first book, and expounds it in Sections 19.

THE LIFE

By a coeval Premonstratensian Canon as Author.

From several Mss. taken care to be printed by Lord Chrysostom, Abbot of St. Michael of Antwerp.

Norbert, Founder of the Premonstratensian Order, and Archbishop of Magdeburg (S.)

BHL Number: 6249

BY A COEVAL AUTHOR.

PROLOGUE.

Without doubt every faithful and pious soul approaches the nearer to the love of almighty God and the deserving of His grace, by as much as he the more easily believes the good which he hears of another, and wishes and hopes that it be conferred on himself by the same Lord God. He who does not believe, does not imitate: but he who does not imitate, will never arrive: because as true is the homeland, which we seek in the exile of this life; so likewise true and singular is the way, by which we tend. But in this way, The examples of the Saints lead to eternal salvation. greatly and manifoldly hedged about with errors and hardships, there have not been lacking to us from the beginning of the world, among the other benefits of divine dispensation, the examples of holy men: following whose footsteps, we might both more eagerly seek and more surely seize the joys of eternal beatitude. Of these indeed there are some, which past and written by others we read; but some, which we ourselves too for a great part have seen and see. Wherefore, since nothing is so advantageous to a Christian man in his pilgrimage, and so necessary for seizing the rewards of everlasting glory, as to form his life with honest morals, and to be occupied with praiseworthy studies; he gratefully indeed and with all devotion takes up whatever about men of this kind he can find to be commended to memory: that of those whose virtue he strives to emulate, he may study also to revolve their merits by continual meditation. But the infidels and impious, whose God is the belly, and the supreme good the pleasure of the body; whatever they read or hear, which is alien from their studies and conversations, they do not fear to judge immediately false and feigned: and because they bear a foul and unclean conscience, holding justice hateful and truth suspect; they do not cease to turn aside simple people from the way of salvation, and to subvert them by their corrupt and lost morals.

[2] Therefore for averting the obstinate impudence of these, The Author wishing to write about the Illustrious Premonstratensians, since I have proposed to write about Premonstratensian men, in our times approved for the merits of all religion and holy life before God and among men; I am compelled to pass over many things, touching only briefly those which are known to all, nor would they themselves with any wickedness dare to deny. When indeed I considered the works of these men, and noticed their increases, I found in a wonderful manner that it was not the virtue of men, but of God. Remembering therefore that Evangelical sentence, which the good Master and Savior of all Jesus Christ uttered, saying: "By their fruits you shall know them": and, "because a bad tree cannot make good fruits"; I betook myself to investigating the tree, whence so many and so great fruits had proceeded. Matth. 7. 16 And when I sought out a little more diligently the origin and root of the matter; there occurred to me the Father of pious and reverend memory Norbert: about whom, as the reason of the narration and the order shall suggest, of those things which I learned and know narrated about him by others with legitimate and faithful testimony, he begins from the Life of St. Norbert the founder. I will compress a few summarily. And, lest a continuous and prolix discourse bring weariness to the reader; this very thing, as diligently as I can, I will take care to annotate distinctly and orderly by chapters and titles; taking from the same aforesaid Father a fitting beginning of speaking, who was the first of this Congregation. Moreover it should be known, that although many have written his life and deeds, I have found none at all, who pursues the matter fully and in order: which lest it happen here too, by diligent examination it was provided, that, certain men coming together into one, who from the beginning continually conversed with him, the individual things should be written down in that manner and order, as the assent of several should have approved. We ascribe the indicated Chapters everywhere to the margin, and subjoin their titles here; about to distinguish in our manner into chapters and numbers, and to adjoin the marginal additions with the Annotations.

INDEX OF CHAPTERS AND TITLES

of the Antwerp edition.

Cap. I. On the birth, origin, and secular life of St. Norbert. II How the grace of God visited him. III Where and when he put off the old man, and put on the new. IV On the beginning of his preaching, and the longanimity of his patience. V Why the Saints suffer evils, which they do not do. VI On the constancy of faith, in the crisis of life and death. VII On the insistence of preaching. VIII How he excused himself, accused before the Legate of the Roman curia. IX How Satan stood by him as he passed the night in prayer. X How, all things being left, he undertook a pilgrimage. XI How he first received everywhere the general power of preaching. XII How he came to Valenciennes, where he lost his three companions. XIII How there he received one for three. XIV How he exhorted his companion. XV How he pacified those discordant at Fosses. XVI On two Princes discordant, of whom one was unwilling to consent to the man of God. XVII Likewise on two, of whom one, when he wished to flee, could not. XVIII On the invocation and confirmation of his preaching by Pope Callistus. XIX How he came to Prémontré. XX How he went out to collect companions. XXI On a certain youth, whom Satan tempted in manifold ways. XXII On a girl, cured of a demon at Nivelle. XXIII On the Relics, which he found at Cologne. XXIV How he instituted Professions to be made. XXV On voluntary poverty, and prompt obedience. XXVI On a certain Novice, who had fraudulently cleaved to the man of God. XXVII How through a vision it was shown to a certain Brother, where the church ought to be built. XXVIII On the construction and dedication of the church of Prémontré. XXIX On the manifold temptations of the Brothers in the beginning. XXX On a certain youth, seized by a demon, and cured by the Brothers. XXXI On a demoniac, cured at Utrecht (Maastricht). XXXII On the conversion of Count Godfrey. XXXIII On Theobald Count of Blois, an illustrious man. XXXIV On the Roman journey, and how he led a wife to the Count. XXXV On a demoniac cured at Viviers. XXXVI On Tanchelin the heretic, and on Antwerp. XXXVII On the malign spirit which he foresensed in a pot. XXXVIII On a wolf made domestic for an hour. XXXIX Likewise on another wolf, who at the command of a boy let go a sheep. XL On a Brother who wished to seize a demon; and on him to whom a demon stood by, and he dared not rise. XLI How a demon assumed the likeness of a bear before Father Norbert. XLII On what occasion he came where he was elected Archbishop. XLIII How he was received into the city. XLIV How he gathered the dispersed. XLV How he transferred the Canons from the Church of Blessed Mary, and put in his own Brothers. XLVI On the persecutions, which he endured. XLVII On the Cleric, who wished to kill him. XLVIII How he ordained a successor in the church of Prémontré. XLIX On the open sedition of the citizens of Magdeburg against the man of God, and on his constancy in the necessity of death. L On the drunkenness of the people of Magdeburg. LI How he was restored to his See. LII How he went into Italy with Pope Innocent and King Lothair. LIII On the contention over his burial, between the greater church and the church of Blessed Mary. LIV On three visions, by which after his departure he was seen.

APPENDIX.

Of the Brothers of Cappenberg.

I What and how great Norbert was. II That he predicted a famine about to come to Westphalia. III That he put fevers to flight by a word. IV On the regular purpose of the Brothers. V On the Rule of Blessed Augustine. VI On the Blood of the Lord, which appeared in the paten of the chalice of Father Norbert. VII On the veil of St. Servatius. VIII On the death of a certain robber. IX On the war which he predicted. X How he cured a demoniac.

This Appendix will make for me Chapter 1 of the Analecta, whose remaining Chapters it is no concern to annotate; because they make nothing for the Antwerp edition, of which alone we here render an account.

CHAPTER I.

Origin; secular life; conversion to a better.

Cap. I

[3] There was in the days a of Henry the Younger, Emperor Augustus b, with Paschal the supreme Pontiff administering the rule of the Apostolic See, in the year from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand one hundred and fifteen, born at Xanten, a certain man, by name Norbert, by nation a German, of the town of c Xanten, which anciently was called d Troja, of illustrious lineage of the Franks, and sprung from the stock of the Salian Germans e, increased with riches, fair of form, slender of stature and a little tall, adult in age; learned in the knowledge both of letters and of the court and the world; polished in eloquence, by office a Cleric, by order a Subdeacon, in life and morals for his age and secular custom quite light. The name of his father was Herbert, of a castle near the forest Kettel by f Genepe in name, and the name of his mother Hedwig; who when she bore him asked of the Lord in her womb, heard through a dream one saying to her: It is predicted to the mother that he will be Great. Be of equanimity, Hedwig g, for he is to be Great with God and with men.

[4] He, when in all things the felicity of the present life served him, and the prosperity of temporal things

smiled upon him; it came to pass, among other things, that he was held conspicuous even in the courts of the Magnates; first indeed in the court of Lord Frederick h Archbishop of Cologne, then in the hall of the Emperor: in this latter namely, on account of the office of i the Clericate and the knowledge of letters; Famous in the courts in that former, on account of the nobility of his soul and the excellence of his urbanity; but in both, on account of the affability of his life and the elegance of his morals. Here famous, there noble; strenuous in both: beloved and honored no less by the Lords than by the whole household; pleasing to all, and apt for all; great among the great, and among the small slight; among the noble illustrious, and dear to all and among the ignoble rustic; among the skilled eloquent, and among the ignorant as if foolish, he showed himself amiable to all: finally made all things to all, he suited the pursuits of all among whom he moved. For he was a man cheerful in aspect, serene in countenance, pleasant in speech, gentle in conversation, affable in fellowship, beneficent to his own, peaceable to strangers; in giving lavish, in receiving bashful; placed in the hand of his own counsel, and set before the eyes of his own thoughts, using his own judgment for reason, and leading his life by his judgment; denying himself nothing, nor leaving unattempted whatever the appetite of his own will suggested; not attending to what is lawful, and not guarding against what is not becoming, provided only that what pleases be at hand, and what displeases not stand in the way: swallowing up the past, devouring the present, anticipating even the future: an excellent citizen of this world, and a renowned colonist of Babylon; walking with closed eyes, and with head turned backward, not knowing what was disposed concerning him for the future, flowing forth into vanities and unlawful things. and ignorant what the morrow's day prepared for him, nay, what was worse, utterly not caring; impatient of religion and quiet, a slave of restlessness and impatience.

[5] These things moreover amplified in all this the hope of his wishes, and dilated the desires of his heart, the temporal succession of prosperous outcomes, and the breeze of human favor, with sweet-sounding applause, and a voice, to a man so affected mellifluous, of those acclaiming on every side and saying, "Well done, well done": before whose sweetness and pleasantness, the promise of the kingdom of heaven, or the threat of the burning fire of Gehenna, and things like these, sounded in his ears, like words slow and drowsy, blustering and tumultuous, full of indignation and trouble, like senile ravings, he enters the way of perdition. and childish follies. Finally every song, which did not double a twofold "Well done" in his circuit, seemed to him like an empty speech and a fabulous tale. Stirred therefore by these goads, and solicited by such a sting, Norbert was carried about in the midst of Babylon; through manifold and tortuous windings, by laborious and difficult ways, always going and never returning, erring and not knowing, wandering and fugitive, fluctuating and not perceiving, in peril and secure, drawing out wind and catching at vanity. Then it came to pass, and behold suddenly and unexpectedly a swift word and a most powerful hand impends over the back of the fugitive, casting down the rider, and raising up the bent.

[6] For it happened that alone, only one boy being taken with him, he was hastening to a certain place k named Freden: but why he went secretly or alone, He Himself knows who said: "I will hedge thy ways with thorns." Hosea 2. 6: But when, with wonderful apparatus both of mount and of silken garment, he was proceeding in the pleasantness of a green meadow; suddenly the clouds thicken, storms arise, thunders terrify, lightnings and tempests flash: the refuges of the villages far off: Caught in a tempest, a spirit having power over the tempests strikes terrors, and the responses of horrible death. What more? The unlettered did not cease to cry, to preach to the learned, the servant to the lord, the boy to the elder; Norbert, whither do you go? Lord, what do you do? Return, father, return: for the strong hand of the Lord is against you. The servant cries, the she-ass speaks, but more usefully than that Balaamite one. For the Lord from above, pious to recall, and not slow to convert, as if he said; Norbert, Norbert, why do you persecute me? I fashioned a body for you, he is admonished by the boy his companion: the riches by which you show yourself off, I administered to you; you ought to have served me: why do you hasten to ruin others too? It is hard for you to kick against the goad. At this suddenly there leaped a stroke before the feet of the horse, piercing the grass, splitting and opening the earth deeper than to the height of a man, which no mortal of sound sense could hear; and, as was said above, he is cast down from the horse by a stroke of lightning: the most powerful hand of the Lord cast down the rider; vivifying by His mercy, raised forthwith him bent down and humbled. The boy stood astonished; the lord lay, the horse too lay, made almost to death beside himself: a stench had filled the place and the garments of the man, as if sulphurous, as if infernal fire.

[7] After the space of an hour the man rises as from a heavy sleep; but also returned to himself, and begins to be converted: touched with grief of heart within, began to say within himself: Lord, what do you wish me to do? And immediately, as if it were answered: Cease from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it; he proceeded no further, nor crossed the trench which the Lord had dug for him: but revolving with himself the mercies of the Lord, that He is good, that His mercy is forever, he returned by the way by which he had come. he puts on a hair-shirt. And from then increasing little by little the conceived fire of divine love, he neither suddenly changed his habit, nor at once left the world; but by the roughness of a hair-shirt he tamed his limbs under soft garments, and tried to raise himself up against himself. But then thereafter gradually and little by little, the interior sword of the word of God, penetrating the depths, and little by little he is changed within and burning the reins and searching the hearts, began from the interior parts in turn to reform what had been deformed by falsehood; plucking out and destroying, rebuilding and planting, casting out the serpent by the same way by which it had crept in; and turned suddenly and in a moment, and changed the wild and rapacious hawk, into a simple and gentle dove. Rom. 5. 20 And it came to pass, as the Apostle says, that where sin abounded, grace did also more abound. And because the Holy Spirit knew the manner and order of His operation, He forgot nothing; but after He inspired love, He added besides and opened the understanding; and put into the soul of the mind now renewed within, that he should still bear a little and fitting time of putting off the exterior man with his acts, he deliberates about renouncing the world: and should choose an apt and suitable place for publicly renouncing this world, and its prince and master the devil, with all his pomps, where the clemency of divine piety might both appear more evident and exist more pleasing.

[8] His strength therefore meanwhile being collected to himself, the Man of God, l and returning inward within himself, and corroborating his soul, and turning over with himself higher counsels; changed utterly and converted all the pursuits of his life, to ways entirely other and altogether different. Now therefore taught to fight with the enemy, he immediately drew back his foot from the Court; and residing at home, or in the Abbey of Siegburg, with Cono the Abbot of good memory m, in the monastery of Siegburg he gives himself to spiritual exercises: who then presided over that monastery, a man of wonderful sanctity, dwelling, and gathering the divine Scriptures by memory; he waited, as Solomon says, a wise man until the time; and exercising certain rudiments of his future conversion, whatever of poverty he disposed for himself, whatever of passions and contests could happen, he lightened by indefatigable premeditation. Prov. 29. 11 But lest the affectionate soul of the new recruit, and a soldier still unexercised, should be somewhat distressed by the assiduous suspension of delay; he was comforted by the example of his Lord and Master and Redeemer of all Jesus Christ, of whom he himself read, that He waited until His time and hour should come; as the Evangelical word relates, saying of the Jews; And they did not hold Him, because His hour had not yet come: and elsewhere under His person; What is it to me and to you, woman? my hour has not yet come: and again; My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready: and again the Evangelist; When the Passover had drawn near, the feast day of the Jews; Jesus knowing, that His hour was come, that He should pass from this world to the Father, etc. John 7. 30, John 2. 4, John 7. 6, John 6. 4, John 13. 1 Imbued therefore with the new grace of interior virtue, but not yet stripped of the tunic of exterior oldness, he soothed his desire with the hope of a more abundant fruit; preferring to take up at the same time both the garment and the ornament of the new man together; the former indeed in the habit of Religion, the latter in the dignity of the Priesthood: and the conferred gifts would become the more pleasant, the more they would be the more excellent from the joint conferring; and through this the malign spirit would fall the more grievously in the sight of the bystanders, the more gloriously the magnificent King would have triumphed in Norbert.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

heard from his parent, a man likewise an octogenarian, that St. Norbert was once born in that place, in which he himself then dwelt. There in the Vicarage of St. Peter there persists a Chalice, which is said to have been St. Norbert's, or given by him.

CHAPTER II.

Sacred Orders received. The word of God preached. Injury patiently borne.

III

[9] And when the long-wished-for time was now at hand, and the sacred Orders were according to custom to be celebrated in the Church; the man of God, filled with pious exultation, hastily and with all devotion went to Lord Frederick Archbishop of Cologne, asking to be ordained the first time among the rest. He seeks the sacred Orders: Which being heard, the Archbishop wondering not a little, that the man should at last by himself ask, what he had often refused when offered by others; yet gladly and with a glad answer assented, that he would do what he sought. And soon that man subjoined: I wish to be made Deacon and Priest at the same time. At this the Archbishop, greatly astonished and fearful, with tears he acknowledges his sins: asked, what was the cause of such a sudden and unexpected will. Who said: So it is in my soul, nor will you be able to know now, but you will know afterward. And when the Archbishop, wishing to know the cause, insisted more vehemently in opposition; the man of God reconsidering with himself, that in every way the person was honest and fitting, to whom he could and ought to open the conscience of his secrets; falling at his feet with tears and groaning, and asking and receiving pardon of his sins, confessed to him the firm and unbending purpose of his will. Seeing therefore the Archbishop, that the man had firmly deliberated with himself what he asked, and fearing to violate the pleasing and pleasant friendship of his intimate; considering also the good, which could most easily come from so praiseworthy a man, and understanding that such things did not happen without divine instinct; although it was not lawful for these two supreme Orders to be given or received by anyone at the same time; yet a dispensation being admitted for the cause and the time, at length sometime assented.

[10] to be ordained Deacon and Priest: The hour therefore of celebrating the Office being come, and each of those who were to be ordained being clothed with sacred and white vestments, according to Ecclesiastical custom, and disposed in their places; Norbert too was present in the midst of the people flowing around; known, as was thought, to all; but unknown, as the truth of the matter was, to all; wonderful among men, but more wonderful before God. With all therefore looking on and waiting, when the Sacristan offered him the blessed vestments, which, like the rest, he should put on to receive the Orders; he, in whose breast the Holy Spirit had already begun His temple, he puts on a lambskin garment: turned his hand to one of his servants, who were there next to him; and signaled that the lambskin garment be presented to him, which for this kind of work he had on purpose ordered to be prepared. Which being received, and they looking with more attentive suspension, he put off the varied and multiform devil (namely a garment of wonderful estimation abounding in costly vanity, procured from iniquitous mammon, in comparison of which in the streets of Babylon no like would be found) and, all seeing, put on the uniform and simple Christ; namely a garment to the men of this world, and especially of that region among the nobles, utterly unwonted, of the vilest price and of almost no moment; which to the partners of his former lightness, would show rather a sign of derision, than display any indications of conversion; but to the man of God more precious than purple and fine linen. But then at last he turned the other hand to the Sacristan, and put on besides the vestments offered to him, which, as the custom is, he should use in receiving the sacred Orders; not at all attending what men should think or say of him.

[11] The sacred Orders therefore being received according to the wish and desire of his soul, and the human judgment about himself being scorned and set aside; he immediately turned his foot, and betook himself to a certain monastery of Siegburg of great and illustrious fame: where among religious and devout Monks in all sanctity, he might both learn the use of the received Priesthood, and take sure instructions of living religiously. And about forty days being completed there, he returned to his native soil; betaking himself to the Church, of which he had been and was a Canon, as it is said, secular. But on the following day, when the Dean and his fellow-Canons had offered to him, the first-fruits to be celebrated as the custom is among most to be offered to the newly ordained, that he should celebrate the mysteries of the greater Mass in the Convent; he with a humble answer assented that he would do it. The hour of the time therefore pressing, he approaches the altar, and the individual things, as the matter required, up to after the Gospel are solemnly performed. he interposes a sermon The Gospel therefore being read, the man of God, kindled with the zeal of divine fervor, the fire of the Holy Spirit growing warm in his heart, turned to the vestibule of the Church; and subjecting to the word of God the ministry of his voice and the office of his tongue, he began, as it was divinely inspired to him, to bring forth from the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God pious admonitions of the future life, and salutary exhortations of eternal beatitude. Adding moreover and showing, how all the delights of this life are fluid and falling, brief in time, vile in estimation, neither worthy of love, nor suitable for possession; glory slippery, on the vanity of falling things. ambition blind, riches fugitive, delight momentary, rest faithless, security uncertain, joys vain, prosperity false; finally how biting in all these are the cares and toilsome solicitudes that goad the one desiring, and harass the one possessing: because not without grief is lost, whatever in this life is eagerly possessed; since that which is coveted, is neither acquired without difficulty, nor kept without danger: inflecting and twisting the whole weight of the business onto his fellow-Canons, yet designating no one openly, but especially turning in frequent discourse those things, by which he might more sharply press their consciences, threatening menaces, and exaggerating vengeance; asserting and adducing, and irrefragably affirming the same with many and necessary arguments, that the severity of divine rigor suffers nothing dishonestly perpetrated to go unavenged; nor leaves anything unlawfully done unpunished: and, since they who do such things, as the Apostle says, shall not obtain the kingdom of God. Gal. 5. 21. After these things returning to the altar, he brought the begun mysteries of the most sacred Mass to the very end.

[12] On the next day again, when now all according to custom had sat down in the Chapter, he began first, the codex being taken, to address the Dean, showing from the words b of the Blessed Gregory and Isidore, whose Rule they said they held, that he himself, who was the Provost and Master of all, Afterward he says to the Canons: ought to recall them to the right path of an honest and holy life. But the elders and Prelates hearing these things, as wise men, considered the matter in silence, according to that which is written; But a wise man defers, and reserves for the future; and because to the truth in no way and to the Spirit, who

was speaking, they did not presume to resist. Prov. 29. 11 But the younger ones, whose custom it is to attend less to the things of God, murmuring to one another, and apart jeering, attributed it to his former lightness. Whence it came to pass that they departed thence, showing him exterior reverence only; both because he was of grave authority among them, then he reproved them individually: and because he displayed the sign and habit of some religion. But he, in a way perceiving and attending from afar the approaches and turnings of each one, on the next day again, when they had come together again, began to proclaim against them, signifying each one by name, namely who, what, where, at what hour, with whom, did or said what was least lawful.

[13] He therefore persevering in this for very many days, when now he seemed to them intolerable; and because, as the divine word says, no prophet is accepted in his own country; with God disposing his way more loftily to the salvation of many, with the malign spirit creeping in their hearts, by the hidden permission of God, who works in the children of distrust, such as they then were; wherefore assailed with insults and spittle, they stirred up against him a certain most ignoble Cleric, of vile condition and humble fortune. Luke 4. 24, Eph. 2. 2. He while with rash and bold presumption he reviles him, and pours over him a roughness of insults, even with spittle, seized with incredible madness, fouled his face. The man of God, so great an affront being received, contained himself, and kept silent; and his face being wiped, and imputing it to his sins, preferred to indulge tears before God, rather than vengeance. In which deed, as is given to understand, he experienced, how much strength remained to him by the grace of God, for tolerating greater things for justice. But there was, as we have learned from the report of many, of that Cleric, by whom he was injured with spittle, such a person; that if he himself had ordered him to be dragged through the mire and plunged by the cooks of his kitchen, he bears the injury patiently. no one would say anything else, but, "It is well done." But these things and things like these are related of him especially for this reason, because visible miracles are stupefying to the simple and ignorant; but the patience and virtues of the Saints, to those who gird themselves for the warfare of Christ, are to be admired and imitated; so that they may be able to be partakers of the reward, who have been consorts of the labor and tolerance; and through this the wage may not be unequal in remuneration, of those whose cause is not dissimilar in their vow.

ANNOTATIONS G. H. & D. P.

CHAPTER III.

Why and how the Saints suffer evils. The constancy of faith in St. Norbert.

[14] For a if, as the divine word says, nothing is done on earth without a cause, and this is the highest and principal ornament of the rational creature, to know the causes of the things which are done; no one indeed doubts whether they are—I do not say "that they are," but "whether they are"—the adversities of the Saints, which they suffer in this world, both worthy of relation, and suitable for knowledge: The cause of each thing being to be known, because neither can the cause of those things be known, whose outcome is unknown. For the cause being understood and known, then at last most easily everyone and of himself, as by his own free will and spontaneous appetite, is moved concerning the end, as the reason of utility or loss shall dictate, to that which is proposed to be imitated or shunned. For in everything diligently considered two things especially occur, namely the cause, by whose knowledge the interior reason of the soul is refreshed; and the effect, by whose use the exterior sense of the body is aided. From which it comes, that the perception of things is twofold: one indeed through experience according to use, which pertains to the exterior sense of the body; the other through knowledge according to cognition, which pertains to the interior reason of the soul. But of these two, namely the soul and the body, then the diverse nature of reason and sense: and again of reason and sense, since the nature is diverse, and the motion contrary; it happens for the most part, that either reason exercised weakens the sense, and takes away the obstinacy of feeling; or conversely, the sense growing strong overwhelms reason, and dulls the edge of understanding. Accordingly when reason, the sense of the body being subjected to it, is exercised toward virtue, one acts bravely; but when sense, reason being overwhelmed, is cherished toward pleasure, one tolerates beastly. From this therefore it is, (neither of which carnal men do) that men given to the senses of the flesh, and accustomed to bodily things, neither seek the reason, nor attend to the cause; thinking that all things come about by fortuitous and unexpected motions. But in whom reason flourishes, and the light of intellect shines forth, these indeed diligently inquire, and easily perceive, that nothing ever not only does not happen, but cannot happen, without a certain and reasonable cause.

[15] And so if you see a man entangled in visible things, leaning on the judgment of the senses, taking care of the flesh, asserting chance, defining fortune, blaspheming Mercury; do not ask of him, why holy men, and just, and good, suffer so many evils in this world, when they do none of these things: since he who is of this kind, reckons as nothing both to know what they suffer, and to imitate what they do. But to whom Christ is to live, and to die is gain; who can in truth say with Paul, To me the world is crucified, and I to the world, bearing the pious solicitude of his salvation; he without doubt solicitously perceives, and diligently considers, what the Saints suffer for a time, in this life only, both of which those who are spiritual do. by the debt of the human condition, and to what by such patience the clemency of divine mercy leads them. Phil. 1. 22 But in this distribution three things are especially to be attended to: namely what each one suffers, why, and what finally he obtains thence. Which can be more compendiously said thus; [and therefore they understand what is the cause and fruit of the patience of the Saints:] the penalty, the cause, and the end. Of the penalty the Apostle says: That through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God, and again: The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come which shall be revealed in us. Of the cause it is read, that not the penalty makes the Martyr, but the cause. Acts 14. 21 On account of which it is said in the Gospel from the person of the Lord: Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice. Rom. 8. 18, St. Augustine epist. 61 & 167 Of the end finally it is written: God shall wipe away every tear from the eyes of the Saints. Matt. 5. 10 And again in the book of Wisdom: These are they whom we once held in derision, and the rest which there follow. Apoc. 21. 4, Wisd. 5. 3. But of these three the penalty is first in cognition, then follows the end: yet b in imitation, the end precedes, and the penalty follows. The end persuades that we should be willing; the penalty proves whether we are able: but the cause in the middle discerns between the children of the kingdom and the children of Gehenna, as between chaff and wheat; between those who suffer for justice, and those who are punished according to justice.

[16] How God permits there to be evil men Wherefore God, by whose providence the whole world is ruled and administered, that He may show Himself the most powerful effector of all things and the most just orderer, did not c prohibit, that there should be no one evil; but subjecting those, who by their own and iniquitous will are such, to the laws of His empire; He brings it about by His omnipotence, that as from nothing by Himself and through Himself something was made; likewise by the same and through the same, either out of evil ones good ones are made, or through evil ones, as through suitable instruments, are perfected those who will and strive to be good; not separating nor disjoining them, but permitting them to be mingled and together. For these four, good and something, nothing and evil, both by the order of consideration, and by the condition of nature, are in a way step by step disjoined from one another. For by as much as nothing differs from something, by so much without doubt both evil through penalty is lower, because nothing; and good through merit higher, because indifferently something. Wherefore God, disposing all things most wisely as a King in His commonwealth, disposing and ordering through the wisdom reaching everywhere the universality of things, opens indeed the cupidity of evil ones, or shuts off the way, as He Himself judges it ought to be, to what they gape after to obtain; but the will of the good He prepares by going before, and the possibility He aids by following after. Wisd. 8 But that what is said may be made more certain, both must be proved from the divine Scriptures. In Psalm 103, certain works of God being commemorated, the Holy Spirit speaks and says: How magnified are Thy works, O Lord! Thou hast made all things in wisdom. And, a few being again briefly enumerated, He subjoins: This dragon, which Thou hast formed to play with him; all things wait upon Thee, that Thou give them food in season. This indeed is to give food, which is to open the way, to what they gape after to obtain. To this sentence also that agrees, which we read in the Gospel that the demons asked of the Lord Jesus Christ, that they might enter into the swine. Matt. 8. 31 For what the prophetic word says, They wait; this is put by the Evangelist Matthew, They asked: and what the former says, Thou giving to them; this the latter says, Go: and what the former, They will gather; this the latter, They went away. After these the Prophet follows, and says: But Thou turning away Thy face, they shall be troubled, which is to shut off the way, by coercing the depraved will, and binding it with certain invisible chains. Like to this sentence is found in the book of Tobit: Then Raphael the Angel seized the demon, and bound it in the desert of upper Egypt. Tob. 8. 3

[17] But of the mercy going before Psalm 58 says, And His mercy shall go before me: and the grace aiding, but of that following after Psalm 22, And His mercy shall follow me. To this sense the remaining words of each Psalm attest, from the beginning to the end. Ps. 58. 2 For the former begins from adversity; and pursues his tribulation by describing it, as if not yet anticipated; but the latter beginning from prosperity, as already anticipated, describes the divine benefits toward himself. Ps. 22. 1 Accordingly the former prays with groaning, Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; but the latter narrates with joy, The Lord rules me, and I shall want nothing. The good therefore share mingled and indiscriminately these temporal advantages or disadvantages among the evil, sometimes the greater, the better they have been found. But to the good these goods come, that they may be believed to be and to be distributed from God; but to the evil, lest by those who either are good, or desire to be, hence adversities are to be undertaken for amendment. such things be held as great. Likewise these temporal evils both fall upon the good, and upon the evil: but upon the former, that they may either be proved, or purged, or exercised; but upon the latter, lest their crimes and iniquities be thought to be unknown by Him or neglected: and through this the loftiness of the divine counsel is the more worthy of veneration, the more incomprehensible it is to human understandings. Whence we too, who fear the penalties of the evil, and desire the rewards of the good, ought not, these things being heard and known, to harden our hearts; but provoked by the examples of these and those, as by divine voices, let us study in the help of our Lord, for obtaining the things we desire, to amend our life, to correct our acts, to instruct our morals; to advance also our sense, will and purpose always to better things.

[18] The man of God Norbert therefore being proved, as was said above, Thus exercised, Norbert and now found worthy in one thing through all; that even according to this the operation of divine providence over him might appear more evident, according to that which is written, He who loves his son, assiduously plies him with whips; he is sought out still, and examined by the trial of a greater temptation. Eccli. 30. 1 For when after these things he macerated himself with incredible fasting and abstinence, by day and night insisting on vigils and prayers; it happened once, while in a certain crypt he was celebrating Mass as usual, that into the Chalice already consecrated a spider fell. Which being seen the Priest was astonished, having life and death before his eyes: for the spider was of no small bulk. What should the man do, whose faith was now solidified in the Lord? Lest therefore he should make any loss of the prepared Sacrifice, he rather chose to undergo the danger; and drank up the whole of whatever was there. he drinks unharmed the spider fallen into the chalice; Therefore the Sacrifice being performed he awaited himself about to die immediately. While therefore, unmoved from the place, before the altar he commended to the Lord with prayers the exit which he awaited; provoked by an itching of the nostrils while he scratched, by a sudden commotion of sneezing, the spider whole was cast out through the nostrils. Behold God again did not yet wish the death of His Priest, whom He foreknew to be useful to Himself, but his faith. In which deed it was most manifestly found out, how great both was this man's faith in the Lord, and the Lord's benignity toward him. For two things to him, for what he was being prepared, were necessary, namely Patience and Faith; patience for arms, faith for strength; patience, lest unarmed he should yield; faith, lest weak he should fail. Accordingly he obtained such great faith, that in it for all the days of his life he would most easily be preferred to all then living, excelling in patience and faith. by the common judgment of all. There was moreover that man without any doubt praiseworthily imbued with the gift of the other virtues: but faith in him is therefore so diligently commended before the rest, because without doubt through it he wrought so many things which he did, according to that which we read in the Gospel, from the person of the Lord saying to His disciples: If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, and should say to this mountain, Remove thyself, it would remove itself. Matt. 17. 19, Mark 9. 22 And again: To him that believes all things are possible. The Apostle too consenting in these words says: The Saints through faith conquered kingdoms, wrought, and the rest which there follow, without doubt commending faith. Heb. 11. 33 Whence a certain man when he said; who in what excelled, of those of that time who were then living, said: In Norbert eminent is faith, in d Bernard of Clairvaux charity, in e Milo of Thérouanne humility. And therefore, if anything be said of him which exceeds the condition of human custom, it ought not to seem incredible to him who is not such; but let him at once refer it to Him, who gave to this man faith through grace, and through faith the power of such things.

ANNOTATIONS G. H. & D. P.

CHAPTER IV.

Persecutions tolerated; pilgrimages undertaken. The power of preaching obtained.

VII

VIII

[19] Protected therefore by the shield of patience, and fortified by the strength of faith, preaching to all and announcing the word of God, On account of his preaching he suffers persecution; in season, as it is said, and out of season, and rendering himself daily better, he lived for three years in the same habit. But when he was persecuted by those, to whom his preaching was importunate, he betook himself sometimes to a certain monastery of monks of Siegburg, which is three leagues distant from Cologne; sometimes to the monastery of Regular Canons, which is called Rolduc; but more often to a certain Hermit, by name Lidulf b, a man of wonderful sanctity and abstinence, leading a Clerical life. To men of this kind therefore he fled for the sake of refreshing his spirit, as often as he was persecuted by those to whom the words of truth were tedious. But with them he turned aside, he frequents spiritual men: that among them he might both learn the institutes of holy life, and take the increases of heavenly hope. But sometimes returning to his house at Xanten, he insisted indefatigably on the studies of his begun preaching. These things therefore being so, it happened that a certain Council was held in the German parts, at a town which is called Fritzlar c, before Lord d Cono Legate of the Apostolic See. From which matter occasion being taken, the Bishops, Archbishops, Abbots, and many other persons, in the Synod of Fritzlar, who had come together there to treat the causes of their business, counsel being taken, gave attention to the man of God. He being present, they began to refute him by accusing, by the common assent of all before the aforesaid Lord; namely why he had usurped the office of preaching, and why he so sharply pursued them with words and insults in that very preaching, when he was sent by no one, various things objected to him nor was constituted their prince: why moreover he displayed the habit of Religion, when in nothing did Religion and private property agree; and by what reason he had cast off precious garments, when the custom of the land does not have it, and especially among the Nobles, such as he himself was, that, as long as they dwell in the world, they use lambskin or goatskin garments.

[20] To all these the wise man, taught by God, wisely answered, saying: If I am assailed about religion; Religion pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: To visit the orphans and widows in their tribulation, and to keep oneself unspotted from this world. Jas. 1. 27 If about preaching; it is written: If anyone make a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, he shall save his soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins. Jas. 5. 20 If about power; it is given to us in the reception of the Priesthood, when it is said: Receive power, and be relaters of the words of God. If finally about the garment; the first pastor of the Church teaches us, that not in a precious garment is one accepted before God; and John the Baptist clothed with camels' hair; and Cecilia, who was clothed with a hair-shirt next to her flesh; and, what is greater than all these, almighty God, to the first-formed Adam at the beginning of the world made and gave not a purple garment, he conquers his adversaries, but a skin tunic. 1 Pet. 3. 3, Gen. 3. 21 Thus therefore unconquered, divine grace aiding him, he departed from them, because their testimony against him was not consistent. Destitute therefore of all consolation, supported only by divine help, he insisted continually on prayers and psalmody, being utterly contrary to the vanity and pleasure of seculars; on account of which both he was against all, and all were against him.

[21] Thence when he had proposed to lead the whole following night sleepless, and by praying to ask God, that He, who is the giver of right counsel, Passing the night in prayer, and the helper of good works, according to the good pleasure of His will would direct his counsel, and aid his purpose; and so had passed the night in prayer; at the highest dawn a little, supporting his jaw with his hand. And behold the adversary was present, hoping to do something by himself; since he had been able to do nothing before through his members, through whom he had striven against him, speaking thus jeering and mocking: Ho, ho, you have proposed many things; but to what end do you hope to come, who could not persevere even in the purpose of one night? The man therefore being awakened and not ignorant of the snares of the lying-in-wait enemy, answers: Who would believe your threats, when from the beginning, the Truth being witness, you are a liar, and the father of lies? John 8. 44 he puts to flight the tempting devil, Thus therefore the malign spirit confounded departed from him. But the man of God seeing, that all were against him, and now the truth, to which he bore testimony, was being suffocated by the superabundant lie of many; especially since their sin grew stronger from the relation of the words of God, according to that which the Lord said; If I had not come, and not spoken to them, they would not have sin: understanding also, that they rushed upon him even

to the casting of a false charge; he resigns his benefices, grieving and fearing rather their detriment and perdition, than that they could harm him; he came to his Archbishop, and resigned to him whatever of benefices and revenues, in which he greatly abounded, he had obtained in the Church. John 15. 22

[22] His houses being moreover sold, and all the other things e, which he possessed either from his patrimony or otherwise by hereditary right, and he gives all the rest to the poor, with all his furniture, and distributed to the poor; and retaining nothing for himself, except ten marks of silver, and one mule, and one chapel-set for celebrating Mass, only two lay companions of his journey being taken with him, by the example of the Patriarch Abraham he undertook a voluntary pilgrimage. And when he had come to a certain castle f, situated upon the river Maas, considering with himself, that the naked cross he ought certainly to follow naked; that same aforesaid property, which he had retained for himself, he there distributed to the poor, only the chapel-set being retained for himself, for celebrating the mysteries of the most sacred Mass. Thinly and roughly clothed The burden of temporal things therefore being utterly laid down and rejected, by the vigor of a soul now well composed and prepared for tolerating poverty of every kind and indigence, he sets out on the arduous and sublime way of the holy life. With naked foot therefore, a woolen tunic, and a cloak sufficient for him, without a roof, without a fixed dwelling, overcoming by the virtue of his soul horrible winters and harsh ice, with Christ alone as leader, with two companions of so singular a purpose, he sets out toward g St. Gilles. Where when he had arrived, and there, by the ordering of God's grace, who does not forsake those hoping in Him h, had found Pope Gelasius, who succeeded after Paschal, he goes to Pope Gelasius: he confessed to him the will and purpose of his soul. Then asking pardon from the aforesaid Pontiff, specially for this, that he had received the two supreme Orders together against the institutes of the Canons, he obtained it.

XII

[23] But the Pope seeing his prudence, and the spirit of God dwelling in him, wished to retain him with himself. But he asking and beseeching, refusing to cleave to him, that he would not compel him by this obedience; explained how he had dissipated himself by wantoning in the courts of Kings and Pontiffs: and that that, to which he invited him, was least suited to his youth i or to the penance he had undertaken. But that if he would order him to be a Canon, or a Monk, or a Hermit, or even a Pilgrim going about, he would gladly and in all things obey. But the holy Pontiff seeing the constancy of the man and the good devotion of his soul; as well as the persecution, which he had endured for the word of truth, being heard and known; he receives from him a most ample power of preaching. gave him license and faculty of preaching the word of God, not only where he had preached before, but also wherever on earth he should wish and be able; enjoining the same from his own person by admonishing and commanding. Moreover those, who before from envy opposed him, he inhibited by prohibiting, lest they should at least impede simple people, if they judged his preaching superfluous or less useful: and this very thing, that it might be ratified and stable, he confirmed by letters of his authority and his seal. The obedience of preaching therefore being received from the Apostolic command; he began in the midst of the harsh inclemency of winter, with feet likewise naked, as he had gone, to return. For so great—which must not be passed over—was that man burning with charity toward God, that neither the harshness of cold, nor the hunger of famine, nor the weariness of the body, could recall him from what he had begun. He pursues a most rigid life: The snows reached him sometimes without any doubt on that very journey up to the knees, and sometimes even up to the thighs; nor yet could they retain him even for a single day.

[24] sparing in food: Food was taken by him only the Lenten and evening one, except on the Lord's days; for he very rarely used fish or wine. His body did not rest by day; but his spirit had rest neither by night, nor by day: for a man of singular faith and great fortitude was that man. When therefore, proceeding with such honest and praiseworthy vigor of body and soul, he passed Orléans, there joined his company a certain Subdeacon; and so with three companions he came to Valenciennes on the Saturday of Palms. On the next day therefore he made a sermon to the people, scarcely yet knowing or understanding anything of that language k, namely the Romance, because he had never learned it: but he did not doubt, that if in his mother tongue he should attack the word of God, the Holy Spirit, who once had instructed the diversity of a hundred and twenty languages; would make the barbarism of the German tongue, or the difficulty of Latin eloquence, at Valenciennes preaching in German he is understood: suited for the hearers to understand. And so by the grace of God he became acceptable to all, so that they urged him to refresh there his wearied and attenuated limbs a little. To whom when by no reason he wished to acquiesce, (for his face was of one going into the Bishopric of Cologne, on account of the knowledge of the people and the language which he had) it came to pass by the dispensation of God, that his companions being oppressed by a sudden sickness, he could not then proceed further thence. The man therefore remained to guard his sick ones, he buries his 3 companions. who in the days following within the Octaves of Easter rested in the Lord with a blessed end. Of whom two laymen lie buried in the suburb at Valenciennes, in the Church of blessed Peter near the market, on the left side toward the West, but the Subdeacon, made a Monk, lies buried in the Church of holy Mary, which is situated in the same town l.

ANNOTATIONS G. H. & D. P.

CHAPTER V.

A conversation with the Bishop of Cambrai. Hugh taken as companion. Sermons held.

[25] Meanwhile while he remained there to guard his companions, it happened that Lord a Burchard Bishop of Cambrai, He is received by Burchard Bishop of Cambrai, a man of pious and reverend memory, had his passage thence on the Wednesday, the day next before the Lord's Supper. Which being heard, the man of God, because they had known each other mutually, while they were still engaged in the world, came to speak with him. Coming therefore to the door of the house, in which the Bishop was lodged, he found there before the doors, by the will of God, one of his Clerics standing. Him therefore with submissive voice he asked, that he would introduce him to the Bishop: for there was frost upon the ground, and the man walking with naked feet. The aforesaid Cleric therefore entering, spoke to the Bishop, and introduced the man. Who conversing a little together between themselves, recognized each other, immediately made mindful of their former familiarity. But the Bishop beholding the man, and within himself most vehemently wondering and astonished, wept; for he could not contain himself; for his bowels were moved

over him. And falling on his neck, with tears, and crying out with pious wailing, with a sigh he said: O Norbert, who would ever believe or think such things of you! But the aforesaid Cleric, who had introduced him, standing, and seeing the affection of the Bishop toward the man, yet not at all understanding their conversation, because they spoke in German; Hugh the Cleric being astonished and weeping with him; presuming, approached, and asked what this was. Immediately the Bishop said: This man, whom you so see, was reared with me together in the court of the King, a noble man and abounding in delights, so much that he spurned my Bishopric, when it was offered to him b.

[26] Hearing these things that Cleric, was immediately suffused with tears; both because he saw his Lord weeping, and because his mind and spirit overflowed into love of so great a man with mellifluous charity. He too had a will of leaving the world, and the manner of living of this kind, which he saw in that man, he had already long chosen in his heart; and with very great devotion he desired to follow him every single day. Who yet, saying nothing of it as yet, conferring it only in the secret of his conscience, considered silently whither the ways of that journey were turning. But the Man of God, meanwhile remaining in the same place, who then solicitous about the sick man, awaited the end of his companions. Those therefore, by whose solace he had frequently overcome very many journeys, and the harshness of the ways, and the cold snows, being received to God, as was said above, for the merit of holy life, he himself likewise was consequently seized with a grievous infirmity. But the Bishop meanwhile awaited, what end at last the infirmity, which had happened, would have; and visited his intimate through a certain Archdeacon and certain other persons of his court. But the aforesaid Cleric, whether he would recover, and when, ardently clinging to his love, from day to day solicitously investigated. After therefore he recovered, he seeks the company of the recovering man, he approached him: and when he had confessed to him the vow and desire of his soul, and pledged that he would go with him; the man immediately stretching his hands to heaven, and giving thanks immensely, said; Lord God, today I had asked Thee, that Thou wouldst give me a companion: for he thought, that immediately remaining with him, he would nowhere go back to do anything further. But that man had not so resolved, but first wished to order his affairs: and therefore when after these words he subjoined, saying; I have to dispose of my affairs; the man was saddened at this kind of speech; and by the sound of his voice, indicating the affection of piety, said; Ho, brother, if it is of God, it will not be dissolved. But that man immediately answered: With an indissoluble bond you have bound me, Father. And so going away, his affairs being disposed in whatever way or undisposed, a little after, as quickly as he could, returning; and thereafter irreversibly following the man of God Norbert, he judged it a sin and unworthy, if for any temporal thing, he should make any delay of those things which please God; or suffer any intervals of delay, in such affection of devotion.

XIII

[27] In the year therefore after the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand one hundred and eighteen, in the month of June, when the man of God was still at the town of Valenciennes, and in the year 1118 he comes to him. destitute of all solace of his companions, of whom mention was made above; that the divine mercy toward His servant Norbert might appear more evident, and exist more pleasing; after their departure from this life, there came to him Lord Hugh, namely the abovementioned Cleric; for this was his name, who in the next place after him succeeded in the government c of the Church of Prémontré; and all things being left, he betook himself with him to the same life and poverty, The Saint preaching with him gratis, a man indeed of pious and holy conversation. The man rejoiced, and giving thanks immensely to God, and conferring the interior inspiration with the exterior gift of God, is animated to preaching. And now knowing and presuming of the will of God, he went around castles and villages and towns, preaching and reconciling those evilly dissenting, and reducing inveterate hatreds and wars to peace. For they were true poor of Christ, expending their labor on others gratuitously, seeking or receiving nothing from anyone even in food or clothing, unless perhaps it had been offered to them at Mass: and all this, whatever it was, they distributed to the poor; mindful of the Holy Spirit and the Prophet, who praises him, who dispersed and gave to the poor, whose justice remains forever and ever. Ps. 111. 9 They were indeed secure of the grace of God, who would provide for His servants the things that were necessary. For holding fixed, that they were pilgrims and guests upon the earth, they could not be touched by any mark of ambition, whose whole hope hung from heaven. For it seemed vile to a noble spirit, that one who had despised all things for Christ, like a dog to its vomit, by whatever device should serve vile rapines, and pant after abject little wages.

[28] He was led into such great admiration and love in the hearts of all, that wherever, journeying, they turned themselves, approaching villages or castles, even the shepherds, the flocks being left, with hasty course would go before; and to the peoples would cry out, that the servants of God were coming. Then indeed the bells were rung, then a concourse of all the people of every sex, he is everywhere received with wonderful affection, every age, every condition, flowing together in troops to the church, gladly heard the solemnities of Masses, and more gladly received the exhortations and admonitions of words. But after the sermon a not small conference being made, on the frequenting of Confession, on doing penance, on the married, on private properties, and how those who die in them ought to be saved; an answer therefore being given and received on all these, toward evening at last they were led to the lodging. For he rejoiced not a little, and judged himself happy and worthy of God, who deserved to receive him in his lodging. But sometimes one drew the little ass, another snatched the halter of the little ass, another by force detained that youth, whom alone they had to guard the little ass. For who would not be astonished that a new kind of life should dwell on earth, and have nothing of the earth, seek nothing? For if, as Solomon says, justice is joy to the just; the man of God most rejoiced, that he had fulfilled that evangelical command, that in the execution of preaching he should carry neither wallet, nor shoes, nor two tunics, except a staff, and a chapel-set d for celebrating Mass, and a Psalter, or some other little book I know not what. Prov. 21. 15, Mark 6. 8 But for refreshment the holy man allowed no seat to be prepared, no table to be set for himself. admitting a thin refreshment: The ground was his seat, and his knees his table; his dishes, seasoned with the condiment of salt, and no other; his drink, water for them, unless perhaps in cities and abbeys, and other places of this kind, they were compelled, invited by Bishops, Archbishops, or Abbots: where, on account of the peace of those reclining together, they were unwilling to exceed their measure and custom.

[29] He has useful conferences with the Religious, For those, showing them every humanity, even in their Chapters gathered them with fear and reverence to make a sermon; and after the sermon, opportunity being given, beat upon them with many questions, on orders, on rules, on the habit, and on various institutions of the holy Fathers; on the life and morals of Prelates, on the subjection and obedience of subjects; on the heavenly sacraments, and on the heavenly life, and on the retribution and beatitude of the elect; on perennial glory, and on the felicity of good spirits; on the indifferent tribulation of good or evil ones in this world, and to what end the works of each come, when the Judge shall come to judgment at the end of the ages. For such and so manifold questions could not be without the instigation and fraudulence of the lying-in-wait enemy: which was found out from this, that some surrounded the man to tempt him, others to deceive him, but most to learn, with their manifold interrogations, and he fructifies much among all: that they might be able to catch him in speech, and prove, whether he preached in truth so unwonted a manner of living in modern times. But the holy Man, although he held for certain, by their own confession, that they lay in wait for him, feared none of these things; but crying out, and as it were exalting his voice like a trumpet, announced the crimes of sinners; and what he preached by mouth, he demonstrated by work; and what he worked, he confirmed by signs and powers. So therefore, passing through everywhere, he recalled many from error; and persuading penance, restrained many from crime, also brought many discordant ones back to concord. On account of these therefore and things like these, God conferred on him such great love and grace toward the people, that scarcely anyone could be satisfied with the sight and conversation of him; and he himself had such great charity toward the people, that for a long time, the lodging of churches being left, he preferred rather to lodge in the midst of cities and castles, where he might gladly receive all comers. He was moreover in all these things, beyond what can be said and believed, patient in vigils, diligent in labor, pleasing in words, gracious in sight, benign to the simple, severe against the enemies of the Church. None, in those times, of those who seemed religious, obtained so great favor toward the people, or so great a thronging.

XIV

[30] The holy man therefore, who had newly received the new Hugh, as he had asked of God, as companion; lest he should waver in such great harshness of penance, addressed him with words of this kind, and sustained him with many admonitions; and lest he should abhor poverty, he instructs his companion with heavenly admonitions. proposed as an example Blessed Lawrence, who dispersed the treasures of the holy Pontiff Sixtus: wishing that he, little by little the dryness of secular heat being set aside, might draw the fountain of heavenly refreshment and sweetness; promising him the same, which was promised by the Truth, namely, that he who drinks of it, shall never thirst. John 4. 13. He taught him also, how a sinner ought to be reconciled to God and to draw near; by what studies, by what labors, or by what virtues every just man pertains to the fellowship of good spirits; how great is the virtue of humility, adding, by which one comes to heaven; and how great that of simplicity, by which it is penetrated; and what kind of obedience, by which one reaches the knowledge of the hidden things of God; what kind of patience, by which the virtue of the soul is possessed; what kind of chastity, which makes one near to God; what kind of virginity, which walks with Him; what kind of poverty, which makes one possess the kingdom of heaven. These and things like these the Man full of God many times from day to day, for the sake of exhortation, repeated.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

more: within which time he seems to have refused the offered Bishopric for this reason, that, although not yet converted from the world, he nevertheless abominated investitures, by which the privilege was extorted, but in the year 1112 annulled by the Pontiff and Council, he knew to be null.

CHAPTER VI.

Discords removed, and peace established.

[31] Therefore that some, of these things which have been said generally, may be said specially; it happened one day, when he was passing through a certain castle a named Fosses, that there was a concourse of peoples both clerics and laics, admiring this unwonted manner of living; and especially because, him whom he had received as companion, they had known. But understanding, that he was, from the grace conferred on him by God, a minister of concord and peace; they began earnestly to ask, that he would have rest a little while with them; asserting, that in that region there was no small discord of mortal hatred; of which they affirmed that no fewer than sixty had been slain, nor could it be pacified by anyone, although it had long been labored at by many religious or powerful men. And when many were saying many things on this matter, it is not to be esteemed by chance, but by the disposing of divine grace, that a certain man was passing by, whose brother had been slain by the same hatred, in the same week. Whom when the bystanders saw; Behold, they say, one of those, about whom there is talk among us. He being called, immediately the man of God, his arms being put around his neck, said thus: My beloved, by gentle address he obtains the remission of his slain brother. I am a pilgrim passing through, and have asked nothing from anyone in these parts yet nor received; but because I see you a young man well armed and elegant, it pleases me to seek and receive a first gift from you, which from your evident probity, I ask you, do not refuse. Immediately that man, by divine prompting, moved with the affection of piety, and suffused with springing tears, answered; What is it, reverend Father, which can be denied to you by me or by anyone? Who when he sought from him the remission of his slain brother, it was without delay remitted; and not only remitted, but thence he rendered obedience to the man of God; showing the opportunity how all things might be pacified, and the hatreds entirely reconciled. For it was Friday b, when it was first indicated to the man of God.

[32] But it came to pass in the morning on the following Saturday, that to the village, which is called Monstier c, each party of the adversaries came together, and also much people from the same neighborhood flowed together, partly that they might see the man of God, of whom unusual things were reported; Many awaiting the conciliating of peace partly that they might provoke to reconciliation the dissenters, by whom the whole region was disturbed. And when that man, by the precept of the Lord's truth, within a certain chamber, the door being shut, persisted praying almost up to the third hour; the people affected with weariness and a certain curiosity (as is wont to happen); they began to wonder not a little, and to murmur, and murmuring to say one to another: he himself persists in the chamber praying, Why have we come together? We thought that he would come out, and sow the seeds of the word of God, and with the flowing fountain of life soften the hard hearts of the discordant; but he himself lies in hiding-places, sleeping and resting, or doing something else of his will. But when they so impatient were unwilling to bear longer, they compelled their companion, who had gone out to them, to enter, and say, that they would all immediately depart, if he did not come out. He indeed, as he was timid, knowing that he was praying, lest in his prayer he should disturb him, deferred entering; yet impelled by their importunity, at last entered; and standing before him trembling, with submissive voice said: Father, the people await you; and because you do not exhibit your presence to them, they wish to depart. And he, Be silent, he says, my son: it is not ours to serve God according to the will of men, but according to the will of God. But yet not long after rising from prayer, he celebrates Mass he enters the church; and prepared with sacred vestments, first celebrates the Mass of the blessed Virgin Mary, as is wont to be done on Saturdays; then the Mass d of those dead, whose death was the cause of the hatred which he wished to pacify. Which being most devoutly performed, according to custom, he went out to make a sermon: but because the hour of the midday meal had now passed (for it was almost the ninth) many having gone out to refresh themselves, he holds a sermon: he found few to whom he might preach. For his custom was, that thus to a few as to many, as to the rich so to the poor, out of the abounding bowels of charity, he would make a sermon to each one according to his measure and his capacity. And a little prayer being made, when he had begun to speak, and had drawn his breath; in a wonderful and ineffable manner that spirit of charity, as a diffused voice, became a sound in the hearts of those who from weariness had departed; and as at the sound of a trumpet each one, the refreshment or drinking being left, from the places and taverns in which they had sat down, as if about to receive better feasts, with hasty course fly to the church.

[33] And when the man of God saw that the church was filled, the sermon being shortened he thus addresses them: Men brothers, our Lord Jesus Christ, when He sent His disciples to preach, among other precepts, gave them this precept; that into whatever house they should first enter, they should first say; Peace to this house; and if there were there a son of peace, their peace should rest upon them. Luke 10. 5, Matt. 10. 12 But we, not by our merits, but by the sole superabundant grace of God made imitators of them, announce to you the same peace, which is not to be despised by an unbelieving mind; for it makes one reach perpetual peace. To you therefore it is not unknown, for what we have come together. It is not ours, nor from ours (as being one who am a pilgrim and a stranger passing through) but of the power and will of God; but it is yours, to acquiesce in His will with entire and devout affection. At this the voice of all became one: Let the Lord command, they say, and then before the Relics he pacifies all. to us through you what is well-pleasing to Him; we have nothing to gainsay, what the Lord, you ordaining, in this business shall have wished to do with us. What more? Each adverse party went out hence and thence into the courtyard, the Relics being placed in the midst; and a small interval being made, the discord was abjured, and concord made, and peace confirmed by oath.

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[34] But because he was not slothful for work of this kind, and for the other works of God, which, from the office enjoined on him and in penance, by divine mercy he had undertaken; on the next day, At Gembloux rising at the highest dawn, he withdrew to another village, not far placed, named Gembloux, that he might make a sermon to the people, in which he was most devoutly received; he goes to two dissenting Princes: because they had heard both that he was a relater of the words of God, and a bearer of gentle peace. But also in the same region two Princes were not a little hostile to each other, and, as is wont to happen, by rapine and fire the whole region had been reduced to waste and solitude. The man of God hearing this, and moved by the voices of the peoples, and having pity on their misery and poverties; went to them, with what labor he could, first to the one, then to the other. Who when he first addressed, saying: You are great and powerful, and ought not to be ignorant, that power has been granted to you by God; and I the servant of Him who am sent to you, me, he says, not for myself, but for love of Him you ought to hear, who for your profit and that of many have turned aside to you. Hear therefore the poor pilgrim, receive the precepts of the Lord your God, he softens the first one transmitted to you through him; receive, that you may be received by Him; forgive him who harmed you; forgive, that it may be forgiven you, and may be to your profit, to the poor and needy for help; that your profit may be the remission of your sins, the help of the poor, the reparation of their dissipated things. These things being heard that Prince, and the man being beheld (as he was of Angelic countenance) and the humility of his dress and habit being considered, and the eloquence of his words with the simplicity of a dove, and the cunning of a serpent; trembled wholly (for all his bowels were moved) and softening his response with the affection of piety, said: Let it be done as you wish; there is no opposition of sure reason, which anyone could object, by gainsaying or resisting your petition.

[35] to the other, hardened When therefore with such affection he had brought to effect what he sought, he passed from him to the other. But the sower of discord, who placed his seat to the North, going before, had so hardened his heart, and scattered the root of his seed in him, and so closed the eyes of his mind, that no ray of true light was in his mind, no fervor of charity was in his heart, by which he might minister to the man of God even a little of sweet responses. But seeing the atrocity of his countenance, and the twisting of his eyes, and the fierceness of his words, and the hardness of his heart; lest he should cast pearls before swine, he immediately kept silent; he predicts a punishment and turned to the companion, whom he had with him, said: This man is mad, but it will be in a short time that he will fall backward, and be given to his enemies to be captured, and ensnared, and trodden under foot. These things he said, and in the same week the effect of his words followed; for being captured by his enemies he was detained. Let the hearer know that these things were narrated for this reason, that in this too the man of God may be believed to have had the spirit of prophecy.

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[36] And proceeding thence, he came to a neighboring village, which is called f Colrois: and, because the fame of him had now spread everywhere, the people from the same neighborhood flowed together to hear the sermon. And after the celebration of Mass, the sermon being heard and finished, as he was wont, on peace and concord; if there were any dissension among them, he began to inquire. But when they named certain discordant ones among them, he began with humble exhortation to recall them from the strifes of old hatred. he prevents another obstinate one from fleeing, Whence when one of them, asked with many prayers, by no means acquiesced in his petition and that of all the bystanders; he leaped outside, and mounting

his horse (for he was a Soldier) strove to flee: but when he fiercely urged it with spurs again and again, by no means could it proceed even a single step. But the others who had remained in the church going out, and running together from everywhere with astonishment and very great wonder; some began to cry out jeering, some to weep condoling; yet all with one voice praised God, who is both glorious in His Saints, and he admits the penitent. and there in the eyes of sinners showed this same glory. But that man confounded with no small confusion at the voice of those crying out, returned to the church before the man of God; and prostrate asking pardon, what was before asked of him, he as quickly as possible gladly granted; and absolution, because he had offended the holy man of God, he asked and received. And so was fulfilled in him what is written: Fill their faces with shame, and they shall seek thy name, O Lord. Ps. 82. 17

ANNOTATIONS G. H. & D. P.

CHAPTER VII.

By the favor of Pope Callistus and the patronage of the Bishop of Laon, Prémontré begins to be inhabited. Diabolical temptations overcome.

XVIII

[37] If therefore the truth of the matter, and to the truth the order of succeeding things is joined, the causes preceding, it ought by no means to generate weariness and occasion of disparaging to the reader and hearers; A Prologue to what follows. because although there are certain things, which to the tedious or to any rivals seem superfluous; yet they are recounted as true by those who saw and heard, and which cannot be passed over; because in another way the deed cannot proceed in order, and satisfy those wishing to know. For all that has been set forth is a few out of many things, which he did, before he gathered Brothers; but now very many remain, which in gathering, and placing, and conserving he labored: and how those, whom through the word of God, and the grace of the Holy Spirit, he had bound in the bond of unity, he conserved; and taught to be lovers of voluntary poverty, and imitators in all things of Christ in obedience. In the same year finally it happened, that Pope Gelasius of blessed memory a, from whom he had received the authority of preaching, departed from the world; To Callistus the successor of Gelasius whom there succeeded Callistus Bishop of Vienne, a man of pious and holy conversation and worthy remembrance; who it is established was elected at Cluny, and in the See of the universal Church received the power of honor and the summit of dignity, by the common election of all. For the aforenamed Pope Gelasius had passed over, with the sounder part of the Cardinals, that he might visit the holy mother Church in its members: who sitting at the head had heard many things of these, as being one who had been Chancellor for many years, in the time of Pope Paschal and others; and the things which everywhere on earth had been on the right or left, could not be hidden from him. The Cardinals therefore being bereaved of so great a Father, and the other sons of the Holy Roman Church, who had come together for the obsequies of Gelasius, by Him who said, I will not leave you orphans, counsel being sought and received, Callistus coming to perfect what his predecessor had begun; giving a good beginning, convoked a Council at Reims: where he both confirmed his entrance into the Church; and himself approved and corroborated the things which had been well done; and the things which were found sinister and to be corrected, by Roman authority both corrected, and ordered to be corrected. John 14. 18

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[38] But the man of God hearing, that the dignity of the Apostolic See was renewed (it was Autumn, coming to the Synod of Reims when first the wintry season of winter begins to grow cold) as he was with naked feet went to Reims: where by the Bishops and Abbots, who had come together, he was received with joy; yet wondering not a little at the excellence of the words of his preaching and his answers, and at the hardness and harshness of his undertaken penance; of which from any of them, when very many had asked that it be remitted and indulged him, as far as pertains to the vexation of the body, he wished to receive no relaxation. But yet, lest by some barkers, he receives confirmation. who are wont to be in novelties of this kind, his sound doctrine could be weakened by anyone; he asked that the letters of Apostolic authority, which he had received from Pope Gelasius, as was already said above, be again renewed. Which being received, the Lord Pope commanded the Venerable Bishop of Laon c Bartholomew, to take up his care: for he himself was a man having from the lineage of his mother certain ones in the Bishopric, led off to Laon, and in the same city relatives; whose bowels were moved with the affection of piety over him; and at their instigation the Bishop was admonished, to minister to him the hand of humanity, though unwilling, for some time. He being led off and the Council finished, the Pope not long after came to Laon: he is compelled to preside over the church of St. Martin and the Bishop taking counsel with the Pope, how he might retain him, offered him the Church of Blessed Martin, which is situated in the suburb, in which were a few Brothers living under the Rule of Canonical profession; which he refused in every way.

[39] At length when he was compelled, lest he should incur the offense of the supreme Pontiff and the mark of disobedience, but, the Canons not admitting reformation, he is freed. he granted what was asked; if however the Canons, dwelling in the same, would not refuse to observe their morals, which according to the Gospel and Apostolic institution he would teach them. But when, they being questioned, he showed the manner of Evangelical institution, how they ought to be imitators of Christ, despisers of the world; how voluntary poor; how patient under reproaches, under affronts, under derisions, under hunger, under thirst, and nakedness, and the rest of this kind; how obedient to the precepts and rules of the holy Fathers; they immediately, terrified at his word and aspect, said: We do not want this man over us; because neither our custom nor that of our predecessors has known such a master; let us be allowed to live thus. God indeed wishes to chastise, but not to mortify: so the man both obeyed, and being loosed from obedience, did not depart from it. He remained therefore in the same place; but his companion, of whom mention was made above, had gone with Burchard Bishop of Cambrai: for he himself had to dispose of certain of his affairs, which he had newly left undiscussed. Which because they were being plundered otherwise than he wished (for he was a novice) he could not bear with equanimity. Meanwhile the Bishop strove to refresh the limbs of his guest, attenuated and dissolved by fasting and cold; but he himself was daily refreshed by his guest with the spiritual and mellifluous refreshment of the word of God. Among other places offered On account of this, kindled in him with very great love and the fire of charity, he assiduously exhorted him, with whatever prayers he could adjoin, that he would be willing to remain in his Bishopric; daily leading him around, and showing, if there were any church that pleased him; if any solitudes, if any deserts, if any land cultivated or uncultivated, he chooses Prémontré. for building and dwelling. Overcome at length by his prayers and those of many, both Religious and other Nobles; he chose a place very desert and solitary, which by the inhabitants was anciently called Prémontré; in which if ever God should grant him to gather Companions, he pledged that he would remain.

[40] The winter therefore being passed, and the cold of snows and ice, by the vernal heat a little wiped away; He gathers Companions. the man of God, as he was wont, girded with the virtue of divine solace, went out to preach; coming alone to Cambrai; and a sermon being made to the people, the seed fell into good ground, namely into a youth named d Evermod: at Cambrai Blessed Evermod; who was suffused with such great dew of the Holy Spirit in the reception of the word of God, that out of love for him he would stand praying to the Lord his God, in the same place, and in the same footsteps, where he had diligently noticed the man of God standing in making the sermon. What therefore did the boy, taught by the Holy Spirit in the word, but believe Him to be the same e Word, which was made flesh, who, where his feet had stood, adored? Nor did he bring delays; but immediately, all things being left, followed him. Who was bound to him with such great bond of intimate love, that all the time of his life the spirit of the man of God took rest in him, and after his departure he commended to him the place of his burial; giving this precept, that he should never, except about to return, depart from him. But coming to f Nivelle, he received another youth, named Antony, given to him by God. These two, at Nivelle Antony, and a third whom he had received before, as far as pertains to human examination, were the roots and foundation of the future multitude which followed: for it is left to the disposition of God, which, by the very great loftiness of His wisdom and knowledge, is hidden and unknown from human eyes. In this, where he gathered them, or how God conferred on him other Companions, there is no need to delay. Yet it is known, and others: that within that Lent he had so many, that in the week of the Lord's Passion before Easter, having returned with thirteen, he possessed the aforenamed place, namely Prémontré h.

XXI

[41] The foundation therefore being laid in Christ Jesus, as the Apostle says, A foundation is laid, which is Christ Jesus, little by little from living and well-cut and polished stones the building grew, and the house of God was amplified, for receiving the pilgrims, undertaking a voluntary pilgrimage, and hastening to the heavenly Jerusalem. 1 Cor 3. 11 But there were not lacking the snares of the tempting enemy and adversary foe, whom the devil being about to subvert who labored to eradicate the planted, to pluck out the founded, to disperse the gathered, to deliver the dispersed to death, with manifold deceit and many-fold craftiness. For considering in individuals the individual and proper affections (as in certain ones the affection of the highest contemplation, in certain other ignorant ones the desire of greater wisdom, in others fasts, in others the remission of enemies) he opposed himself in every way: and what he wished to be by usurpation, namely, that he should become like the Most High,

to deceive the new recruits of God, he did not fear to transform himself into an Angel of light. And so that of these very many things, some may be discoursed for the ears of those wishing to hear; it happened one night, to a certain man standing and contemplating at Matins, and thinking of that glorious and ineffable Trinity, that that ancient adversary visibly stood by, and said: O how happy you are, and how praiseworthy in your good purpose! who have both well begun, and resolve to persevere in such great affliction! Therefore the holy Trinity, to which with all the affection of your mind you sigh, you shall deserve to see: and, these things being said, he appeared bearing three heads, attesting himself to be the Trinity. He lies that he is the Trinity, but is repelled by the recruit: But that man, terrified, and wondering greatly, yet having premeditated a little, when he felt not the hissing of a gentle breeze, but the foul wind of a whirlwind, said: O wretched and unhappy one, and worse than all creatures! You, I say, who were the seal of the likeness of God, and by pride lost the knowledge of this truth, how do you presume, not only to know the Trinity, but to be it yourself, you who have not received the power to wish henceforth to know yourself. Depart, he said, depart, and presume not further to disturb me, not obedient to your frauds. Immediately he departed, hereafter to return to the same man.

[42] That Brother indeed was prompt to obedience, devout in prayer, yet to the same one indiscreetly abstaining assiduous in fasting, so that through the whole year he fasted both in summer and winter, and could be compelled by no one, except on the Lord's days, to take a second refreshment in the day; and then he took something raw, and not any cooked thing. But when all wondered over him, and the virtue of so great abstinence and continence of his was everywhere preached in his praise; Satan was present again, secretly laying snares, that he might prostrate the new soldier; for he was a youth, and could be indignant that he had once resisted him. For on the Wednesday at the head of the Fast (Ash Wednesday), when Lenten abstinence is enjoined on the devotion of all the faithful, such great hunger and voracity of gluttony invaded him, that he said, that he could in no way fast, and would wholly die, if he were compelled to abstain even from milk and cheese. To whom when it was said: What is it, Brother? It is a sacred and yearly fast, and it is not lawful for anyone, even a secular, to refresh twice; or for any little child, to break the abstinence of milk and cheese. He, with grim countenance and wolfish rage, brings on enormous hunger; answered: Does God wish a man to die, by subtracting from him at any time, whatever for his uses He created and in the hour of necessity to be taken? What more? Father Norbert was absent, and the Brothers still rude, who had not been accustomed to bear arms against assaults of this kind, with manifold supplications at last obtained this from him, that he should eat both twice, and as much as he wished of Lenten food; fearing lest that reproach should go forth, that so strict and sudden a Religion did not preserve even the custom of seculars in its Converts.

[43] When therefore the Lenten days had passed, and to celebrate Easter the man of God returned to Prémontré to his Brothers; at the entrance of that valley a very great horror invaded him, and the wind of a whirlwind surrounded him, from which the Saint frees him. like a wind coming from the North: and he immediately perceiving, foretold to those coming with him that a malign temptation was at hand. But coming to the Brothers, trembling at his questions they narrated what had been done. But he grieving: Alas for me, redoubling, he said, to my misery, and to the detriment of the Brother's soul, and to the notice of our foolishness, you wished to consent to this; and through this you gave place to the devil, unless he be manfully resisted, to destroy. Where is he, he said, that one? Who when he was led in, could scarcely sustain himself for excessive fatness; and like a swelling bladder, full of the spirit of voracity, could not look at the Master, whom he was wont to love above all things, except with grim eyes. Seeing therefore the man, to whom God had given the discernment of spirits, that it was not of human infirmity, but of diabolical temptation; he immediately forbade that anything at all be given to him. Who after he had fasted for some days; when the fourth part of coarser bread was given to him, and a vessel of water by measure, he reckoned it for the highest delights; and so to his former custom, of living well and moderately, God succoring through his Master, he returned.

ANNOTATIONS G. H.

CHAPTER VIII.

Various companions acquired. A possessed woman freed. Relics received.

XXII

[44] The ancient enemy being conquered by the youth, and the timidity of the faint-hearted flock being driven off, peace being reformed; the man of God, as he was wont, went out to preach. But, as is wont to happen, the standard-bearer being absent where war is waged, the enemies set in ambush attack their adversaries; so likewise the most malign ambusher stretched his bow, and prepared in it the vessels of death; considering both at once, both the wavering flock, The Saint having received Hugh, and the leader of war and the protector against frequent darts being absent. But meanwhile the adversary must be passed over, that first, what the man of God did in this going out, may be said. The man therefore went out to his work; for passing through he received his first companion, who had gone away to arrange his affairs: and very many discordant ones being recalled to concord on the journey, they came to Nivelle. But because, from the beginning of his preaching, in the same town he was held very dear; he also receives others, immediately as he settled at Prémontré, certain of them, for the grace of conversion, ran to him; but not able to bear the harshness of the Order and the imposed institution, like a dog to its vomit, they returned. Who, as is wont to happen, wishing to cover their wickedness, for the reproach of the man of God, and for the repelling of the seed of his preachings, as also the enemy man, had oversown tares in the field of the householder; so that they cared neither to see him, nor to hear his preaching. and he scorns the detractions of those falling back: But he, who was wont to swallow draughts of this kind, weary of the malice of those who had stirred this up, was in no way frightened; trusting rather that this was matter of victory against the demons, who strove to oppose his preaching, and the salvation of those believing, which God wrought through him.

[45] While therefore for this cause he was held of small price among that people, God raised up war for His soldier, of which, by His gift, contending manfully he attained victory; and restored to his former love, he obtained the favor and grace of most sweet odor not only with the people of Nivelle, but also before all hearing this. For there was there a certain father of a certain girl, who had now for a year been vexed by a demon, he exorcizes a woman possessed by a demon and was held in chains and prison; who weeping and sighing grievously, affected with grief for his daughter, began to ask him, that he would at least deign to see and touch her. A great work! but not an unequal faith in the work. Bring her, he said, to me. The girl now twelve years old is led, and a very great throng of the people came together. Then therefore the Priest of God, seeing the time and place and matter, that God might be glorified, conceived greater confidence. And so clothed with Stole and Alb, he set about performing the exorcism; bold, and began to read various Gospels over the head of that girl. To which the demon answered: I have frequently heard ditties of this kind, neither for you, nor for all these will I today depart from this dwelling. For for whom should I depart? The pillars of the Church have fallen. But when the Priest multiplied the exorcism, the demon answered: You do nothing, because you have not yet adjured me by the glittering blood of the Martyrs. Then therefore, as the demon is truly proud, wishing to display his knowledge, and speaking in various tongues, he uttered the Song of Songs, from the beginning to the end, through the mouth of the girl: and repeating word for word, interpreted it into the Romance language up to the end; and reiterating word for word, expressed the whole in German; whereas that girl, while she was still healthy, had learned nothing but the Psalter.

[46] Nonetheless the Priest of God pressed on: and while he insisted, and commanded that he go out from the creature

of God, the demon compelled answered: If you compel me to go out hence, permit me to enter into that Monk (for a certain Monk stood there) and he named him. Then indeed Father Norbert, to whom God had given the discernment of spirits, cries out to the people: Hear, hear, he said, the malice of this demon, who, that he might defame the servant of God, sought him to be vexed as a sinner and worthy of this punishment; but be not scandalized over this, because such is his wickedness, that he wishes to disparage all good men, and he detects his cunning, and as much as he can to make them infamous. This said, the office being begun again he began to insist more sharply. Then the demon said: What do you do, he said? neither for you, nor for another will I go out today. But if you shall presently see me cry out, now so many of mine, that is of the black ones, will come to battle; Ho to battle, ho to battle. Ho now I will make these arches and vaults fall upon you. At this word the people scattered, but the Priest remained undaunted and intrepid. Then she cast her hand to his Stole, that she might tighten it close to his neck. And when those who were present wished to move away her hands; Do not, he said; permit her: if she has received power from God, let her do what she can. Then indeed, her boldness struck by this word, as if showing reverence, she relaxed her hands of her own accord. and scorns her threats: Now therefore a very great part of the day being consumed, Father Norbert took counsel, that he should place her in exorcised water. And so it was done. And because she was blond, the Priest fearing, lest by occasion of the hair the devil should retain power over her, ordered her to be shorn. By which injury the demon being moved, began to avenge himself on the Priest with curses, saying: Pilgrim from France, Pilgrim from France, what have I done wrong to you? Why do you not let me rest? May all evils and misfortunes, and all evil events come upon your head, because you so vex me.

[47] Now it was the evening hour: and Father Norbert seeing that the demon had not gone out, somewhat saddened, ordered her to be given back to her father, the possessed woman herself being dismissed until the next day, and on the next day to be brought again to Mass, but he himself began to strip himself of the Alb and other garments. When therefore the impious demon had seen this, he began jeering to clap his hands, and to say: Ha, ha, he, now you do well; and today you have not done a work that would so please me; and today you have consumed the day, and profited nothing. At this Father Norbert chafing and indignant, betook himself to the lodging, and resolved firmly in his soul not to taste food, until she should be healed, and so he passed that day and night without food. Now the next day had come, he remains fasting, and the Priest of God prepares himself to celebrate the mysteries of Mass, and again the girl is brought: and again a manifold concourse of the people is made, to see the contest of the Priest and the demon. Then indeed he charged two Brothers who were with him, to hold her there near, not far from the altar. The service therefore being begun, it came to the Gospel: and she applied to the altar, and at length after Mass very many Gospels were read over her head. And the demon again began to repeat his derision, because he had frequently heard ditties of this kind. When therefore it came to the place, where the Priest elevates the Host before the Lord; the demon cries out: See, see, how he holds his little God between his hands! The demons confess, what the heretics deny. Then indeed the Priest of God shuddered; and conceiving the spirit of power, in his very prayer began to drive and torment the demon. he expels the demon. But that one compelled and tormented, through the mouth of the girl cries out: Lo I burn, lo I burn. Again and again he cried, Lo I die, lo I die. A third time too with a great voice he said, and often repeated: I wish to go out, I wish to go out: let me go. But those two Brothers held her firmly. But the unclean spirit suffering no delays, leaving the foul traces of most stinking urine, fled away, and left the possessed vessel. But she, deserted by her tormentor, collapsed and languid was carried to her father's house; and a little after, food being taken, she appeared wholly unharmed, and master of herself, and perfectly healed. This was thus publicly done, with all the people as witness, who in common preached the praises of God, and confessed Father Norbert a truly Apostolic man.

XXIII

[48] After these things he came to Cologne, where he is both gladly received, and more gladly heard in sermon and confession; At Cologne he receives several Companions because they had known him before as a youth, and now saw him wonderfully changed. And because the custom of the peoples is wont to be an imitator of novelties, many running together at his word and exhortation both clerics and laics, made imitators of the poverty of Christ, followed him. He too had then in his will to build a church, in which he might receive those gathered together. For this cause he asked from the Archbishop Frederick and the other faithful, that he might deserve to receive some patronages of holy Relics, he asks for Relics of the Saints, with which happy Cologne was from of old not a little filled and endowed. The Bishop assented, the Clergy assented, judging the petition to be just, and the people. But he to his Brothers, whom he had with him, and whom God had there conferred on him, a fast being enjoined, commended this precious gift to God, that He would give him to find a venerable patronage. But on the same night, a Virgin of the number of the eleven thousand Virgins, both the name of that Virgin, and the place where she lay, and he obtains it was designated to a certain man through a vision: and on the next day, according to the order of the vision, the body there sought, was found intact. Which being received with hymns and praises of God and giving of thanks, of the Relics also of other b Virgins, and of certain other Martyrs, namely Gereon, the Moors, the two c Ewalds, two little vessels, in the manner of a bier, were filled for him to carry off.

[49] But on the following day, when he supplicated the Provost and Canons of St. Gereon to give him Relics likewise; it was granted to him, that, if anything in their church pleased him, he might, if he wished, seek and take it. The man rejoiced, he uncovers the body of St. Gereon: and this promise, as he was wont, commended to God by praying through the whole night more attentively. But morning being made, in the middle of the monastery, where no trace of any sepulcher was apparent, he ordered to dig: where a body intact except for the brain was found, honorably and with all diligence placed. Which when the Canons, and the innumerable people, which had come together, beheld; Behold, they say, our Lord St. Gereon, and our venerable patronage; which was diligently sought by us and by our predecessors for many years, and, our sins requiring it, could not be found. And crying out with a great voice with joy, they gave immense thanks to God, extolling the man worthy of God, through whom such and so great a treasure, long desired, deserved to be found. And lest anyone doubt that it is not he, let him know for certain, that there was a true indication of recognizing him, that what was read of his death and martyrdom, that a part of the head, and not the whole head was cut off. This part they had, and he obtains a part of him: but where the rest of the body was, they were ignorant. The holy body therefore was received as it worthily ought, and elevated; and a part thence was given to the man of God: what remained, was magnificently placed back by the Clergy and people. Not long after the Relics being taken, and the college of Brothers both clerics and laics being collected, whom he had begotten to God through the word of preaching, he undertook the journey of returning; who everywhere in churches and congregations was magnificently received with procession. But a certain noble matron hearing of his passage, named d Ermensindis, Countess of Namur, he undertakes the Church of Floreffe. swiftly ran to meet him; earnestly entreating, that he would be willing to undertake for placing Brothers and Religion, a certain little church of hers in the village of Floreffe. For she had for a long time in her will, for the remedy of her soul and of her predecessors, to propagate Religion in the same church. But seeing her affectionate devotion, he regarded her, and undertook what she sought. And one of the little vessels of Relics being left there, he hastened to Prémontré (for the day of the Nativity was at hand) having about thirty novice Brothers of clerics and laics.

ANNOTATIONS G. H.

CHAPTER IX.

Profession according to the Rule of St. Augustine. The exercises of virtues prescribed.

XXIV

[50] About forty Clerics therefore being gathered and very many laics, with assiduous consolation evening and morning he cherished them, and with manifold sermons exhorted, He exhorts his own with great ardor, that they should not desist from the happy purpose and voluntary poverty which they had undertaken; and what he taught, like an eagle provoking its young to fly, he demonstrated by works. For his exhortations and sermons were not of earth, nor displaying any earthly savor; but like a dove, wings being taken, he flew. He flew indeed in mind and mouth to rest, and made his hearers fly; so that he seemed to say with the Prophet: I will take wings like a dove, and I will fly, and I will rest. Ps. 54. 7 Whence certain of the Brothers sitting by, were caught up in such great excess of merits, that they rose from the places, in which they sat: and seeking around themselves to find wings they thought they had them, immediately esteeming themselves to fly and to rest. Finally they so believed him, and clung with such great affection of familiarity, that they sought no Order, no Rule, no Institutes of the holy Fathers for obtaining the glory of eternal felicity, except what they heard from his mouth, or learned to have been said. The man knowing this, in all things discreet, and provident for all things; and he has them obeying him with simplicity. lest in the future the holy plantation could be eradicated, and the foundation, which he had disposed to place upon the firm rock, could be shaken; admonished them about the Order, about the Rule, about the Institutions of the holy Fathers, without which the Apostolic and Evangelical institution could not be fully observed, by which stand the sure commandments of God, and the end of all consummation, and the blessing of all the faithful,

They, like sheep in simplicity following their shepherd, do not refuse what he exhorts, do not refuse what he urges; but what he teaches they embrace, and for the desires of the eternal pasture obey in all things.

[51] Wherefore the man feared rather, lest to the little flock and seeking God in simplicity with all the heart, he should show less of what pertains to salvation; not because he was ignorant of the various Rules and Institutes of the holy Fathers, weighing the various Institutes, but because many Religious both Bishops and Abbots gave various counsels, one persuading the eremitic, another the anchoritic life, another the Order of the Cistercians to be taken up. But he, whose work and counsel depended on things above, who commended his beginning not to himself, not to men, but to Him who is the beginning of all things; conferring all things in his heart, like a wise man swift to hear, who defers and reserves for the future; at length lest he should seem to bring injury to the Canonical profession, to which both he and as many as wished to live with him had been ascribed from infancy; ordered the Rule, which Blessed Augustine instituted for his own, to be brought: for the Apostolic life, he chooses to profess the rule of St. Augustine, which he had undertaken in preaching, he now desired to live; which indeed he had heard had been ordained and renewed by that same blessed Man, after the Apostles. Which when it was brought he had diligently inspected, composed in few things, yet in many things well disposed; immediately on the day of the Lord's Nativity, which was at hand, after the manner of the Lord's enrollment, under it both for the grace of stability in the place, and of profession, each one enrolled themselves to that city of blessed perennity. Then when very many surmised very many expositions and various opinions of interpretations upon the same Rule; because they saw its precepts not to agree with the morals and works of other Regulars; and led some to fear, others to doubt, others to lukewarmness, as being a plantation still tenderly rooted; Why do you wonder, said the man of God, or hesitate, since all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth? and if diverse, are they then adverse? If the use and institution be changed, ought the bond of charity, which is love, to be changed?

[52] The Rule indeed says, First let God be loved, then the neighbor. and he defends its authority: The kingdom of God is not wrought by institution alone, but by truth and the observance of the commandments of God. Therefore because about love, because about labor, and about abstinence of food and fasting, also about clothing, about silence, about obedience, and that they ought to prevent one another in honor, and to honor their Father, this Rule evidently determines; what is there that further may be expedient for anyone of the Regulars to obtain salvation? But if about the color or coarseness and fineness of garments there be some contention among certain spiritual men; let those say, who from this take occasion of disparaging: let them say, I say, of this Rule, let them say of the institution of the Gospel and of the Apostles, where whiteness, blackness, fineness, or coarseness, by giving a precept, is described; and they will have to be believed. One thing however there is, that the witnesses of the resurrection the Angels are read to have appeared in white; but by the authority and use of the Church, penitents are in woolens. In woolens likewise in the old Testament they went out to the people, he prescribes a white and woolen garment: but in the Sanctuary, by precept they were wont to use linens. But because the exposition of the holy Fathers and of our predecessors teaches, that holy preachers and those using the canonical profession bear in type the place of these Angels, let them not generate scandal a from white garments: and if they are penitents, and if their office compels them to go out to the people, let them not abhor woolens; but if they are about to enter the Sanctuary of God, let them not omit linens. The just Man did not teach this, that he might disparage the other institutes of the Fathers, which are very many; who was made all things to all, that he might gain all.

XXV

[53] For he was severe in censure: and when many now flowed together to him, He teaches his own he exhausted their whole spirit, the Holy Spirit teaching; that the spirit of pride being emptied, the same Holy Spirit might find a better place in them. And the grace of God was not lacking, which, to however dissolute and remiss, and however withered hearts, ministered the vigor of divine solace. Of bodily things there was scarcely any care and solicitude: but they had conferred their whole study on spiritual things, to care for spiritual things only, to follow the divine Scriptures and to have Christ as leader. For this too that spiritual Father attended, that they could never wander astray, who wished to remain with him, if they made their profession according to the Gospels and the sayings of the Apostles, and the purpose of St. Augustine, and fulfilled it in work. This he saw, and these professions, as was set forth, he judged to be made in this manner. The mind therefore of those, to love old garments, who from the beginning were gathered, was so affected, that they rather chose an old and patched tunic, than any new and whole garment. Whence also it came to pass, that certain ones not a little embracing poverty, when they blushed at the new garments given to them; to show how vile is the pomp of the world, to repress pride, sewed old rags over the new. No work was so vile, that they would spurn it. to obey promptly, Obedience so prompt, that if a burning oven were set before them, or any death offered itself, they feared more the one commanding than death. Continual silence in every place, in every time, to keep silence continually, in every state: so even that those who accompanied him, although mingled with the most crowded throngs of the people, scarcely one word could be wrung from their mouth. But if he blamed any of them for however small a fault, falling there at his feet to make satisfaction, he did not blush at the sight of the men standing around. But if any of his own answered bitterness in action, to confess humbly, in words and countenance, even to those doing ill, there immediately the penalty of satisfaction was paid.

[54] He wished that they should fast at all times, content with one meal in the day. He wished also that they should be carried about on little asses up to four or five leagues; but the infirmity of the flesh opposing, it could not be observed. He commanded his Brothers always to use breeches; because he always abhorred that the manly strength of soul should grow slack with effeminate softness: yet not in this respect c approving more precious threads before the eyes of the inner Judge. to be clothed vilely, How religious was that Order, which from its Rule and purpose lacked these things! He commanded the use of woolens next to the flesh, woolens for labor, and without any dyeing; although he himself was assiduously clothed with a most harsh hair-shirt. But in the Sanctuary, and where the divine Sacraments were to be handled, or celebrated, on account of cleanness and manifold honesty, he wished linens to be used, but neatly: and disposed them to be used at all times. But three things must not be passed over, which he especially commended, often from day to day redoubling that these were to be kept: namely concerning the altar and the divine mysteries cleanness; the amendment of excesses and negligences in the Chapter and everywhere; the care of the poor and hospitality. his three other chief admonitions. For at the altar each one exhibits the faith and love of God; in the purification of conscience, care of himself; in the reception of guests and the poor, love of the neighbor. He indeed constantly asserted, that some house could never be in want, beyond what it could sustain, which had solicitously studied to observe these three things. For by words and deeds he cried out, that he knew nothing else, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified: in all his actions attending the preceding reason, that when he should be supported by reason, and confirmed by authority, he might be able to stand.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

CHAPTER X.

The hypocrisy of one companion detected: a church constructed.

XXVI

[55] One day finally, when he was returning from Reims, with certain of his Companions and two Novices, Admonished by a certain voice whom the divine word made to them had drawn from the world; and they were walking with silence, meditating along the way in their God; a certain voice from a cloud sounded in their ears in this manner: This is, it said, the fellowship of Brother Norbert: to which another voice from the other side answered: Of these two Novices one of them is not of the fellowship of the rest. This that man heard and the others who accompanied him, and considered the matter in silence, suspecting nothing evil: but yet they hesitated what ought to be done. But Father Norbert, on whom the greater solicitude lay, detects the hypocrisy of one of his own, knowing that it was not in vain, that by divine permission these voices were heard; sought out with all insistence of prayers to what these gave an answer, considering their morals and acts from day to day, concerning whom they had been uttered. And when he had considered one of them, less devout in confession, light in words, restless in body, inconstant in morals, lukewarm in prayer, negligent in obedience, and

in all things dissolute (for he was an Englishman) What is it, he said, Brother, what is it that you bear in your heart? Disclose what lies hidden. If you seek God, no creature is invisible before Him; because, as the Apostle says, all things are naked and open to His eyes. Heb. 4. 13 We seek the truth, and, as far as is granted to human frailty, we strive to walk in the truth; nor is there any agreement of truth with falsehood, nor any participation of the faithful with the infidel. To whom he, shaking his head, and displaying a smoothness of words; Do you think, he said, good Father, that I wish to steal anything from you? You are poor; but to everyone who has it shall be given, and he shall abound: but from him who has not, even what he seems to have, shall be taken from him.

[56] These things he said, and what he said he fulfilled in deed. For then by chance a certain man had come for conversion, and with his little substance had brought a little silver; which lay thrown behind the altar of the poor oratory, and he soon experiences him a thief. which they then alone had. But on a certain night that Englishman, foreseeing for himself a suitable hour, snatching that silver, fled away. So therefore that deceiver, full of fraud and a minister of the devil, judging them poor in heart, increased the poverty of the poor of Christ suspecting nothing of deception so much, that no substance remained to them, whence the provisions of one day could be procured. What then? They were first to be proved by the food of the body, who had heard that they were possessors of the kingdom of heaven, whom it was established to become poor, not by things and riches, but by the spirit of poverty. They were to be proved in lesser things, Solicitous about preparing a house for his companions, that they might learn to stand in the storms and tumults, by which they were to be attacked, as the sequence will teach in what follows. Therefore for insinuating the divine work, which is great and exquisite, in which, by the secret counsel of His disposition, He works great things in the least, who looking on humble things, knows lofty things from afar, a few things about the place of Prémontré and its situation seem to be discoursed; that there be praise at all times, from all hearing, to Him who from eternity and before all times, known to His foreknowledge alone, manifested it in the latest time.

[57] Already then finally, that the order of the matter may proceed, very many under the discipline of the oft-mentioned man both in life and purpose, all things being left, betook themselves. And because there was now a throng, counsel being defined it was sought, in a place inconvenient in itself. where in the same desert they might prepare a certain place for dwelling, and suitable for building. For that place was most harsh, and in every way uncultivated, occupied by shrubs and marshes and other inconveniences; nor was anything apparent fit for dwelling, except a little chapel, and beside it an orchard, and a certain small pond, which is recognized to be filled only in the time of rains from the waters of the mountains falling, and from the juice of the marshes up to the present. There the man of God had settled together with his little fellowship, joining the anchor of hope to unshaken faith, and with our Patriarch Abraham placing hope against hope; so much, that even almost all the Religious testified, and the people cried out, that what the man had begun could not stand; and on account of the harshness of the excessive poverty and food, they rather for some years awaited flight, than the foundation of any stability. But what should he do, destitute of human reason, and of rational help? Knowing that Jesus set His face to go to Jerusalem; he too set his face to await death there, who had come to die to the world, and to live to Christ. Luke 9. 51 He cried out that they live, he cried out that they truly live, who live not to themselves, but in whom the poor Christ lives: but I live now not I, says the Apostle, but Christ lives in me. Gal. 2. 20 This he had heard, and taught; and he who has ears to hear, let him hear. But yet lest the little flock should despair, and that he might gladden the hearts of his friends, awaiting not the outcome of the matter, but the state, and that he might take away from rivals the occasion of disparaging; after prayers were enjoined the suitability, however much it could be in such a place, both he himself began to go around and consider, and he commanded others to consider: adding, that to almighty God assiduous and intent supplication of prayers be made, to show the place in which the celebration of divine worship might be made at all times.

[58] And when many with many and assiduous with assiduous prayers commended this counsel to the Lord, earnestly seeking out the good pleasure of His will with excessive affliction, fasting and prayers; there appeared to a certain man a certain revelation, manifest enough and evident, evidently announcing with open signification the place, and the things in the place, and the things which were to come of the place. For there, and a vision offered to one of his own where the present church is situated, our Lord Jesus Christ was seen as on the cross, above whom seven rays of the sun of wonderful brightness shone; and from four parts, as in four, the entrance of that place is recognized to be in the manner of a cross, a great multitude of pilgrims with wallets and staffs hastened, and with bent knees their Redeemer being adored, and a kiss given to His feet, as if about to depart by leave they returned. Which when it was related to the Man of God, he gave thanks to the Lord his God, who to His servants, seeking Him in truth, and obeying in faith and justice, both gives confidence about past things, and about future things knowledge by secret revelation. And after these things, with cheerful face, confidence being taken, Ho, he said, ho, most beloved Brothers, gird yourselves and be strong men: very many kinds of wars are prepared for you, which are to be from enemies both visible and invisible; but those who came as new recruits through the vision, confidence being taken, will come visibly; and the precept and obedience being received from Him who was obedient to the Father, they are with you to fight up to the consummation. Who doubts that this word was not true and prophetic? For indeed it was true, which the subsequent action daily insinuates in those, who, all things being left, come as pilgrims, and profession being made as if a kiss given, for obtaining the battle-lines of conflicts, withdraw to various nations. From sea to sea the trumpet sounded, and their voice was heard, in which both the works of God are manifest, and exquisite in all His wills. Thanks to Him, who does not forsake those hoping in Him.

XXVIII

[59] But because the spiritual building and temple had been well disposed and composed, and to the material it was necessary to apply labor; that all things might be done with blessing, he lays the foundations of the new church Bishop Bartholomew being called, the foundation being dug and consecrated, of consecrated stones he had the church founded, Lord Thomas of Coucy standing by, who feared the man of God, and revered him for God, knowing him a just man and worthy of all honor; his son Enguerrand also standing by, still a little boy, and many noble clerics and laics, and an innumerable multitude of peoples wondering, and as it were considering a spectacle, and saying within themselves to one another: Who, do you think, is this man? of what faith, who uses no reason? Do you think this work is stable, which is placed in such great solitude? and whose foundation is laid not on rock, not upon firm earth, but in a marsh? For there was such great marsh there, that it could scarcely be swallowed up, even when much heap of stones was thrown in. But it ought not to totter, nor could it be eradicated, because the plantation, which the heavenly Father plants, will not be eradicated. which when after 9 months it is dedicated, Furthermore part of the masons were Germans (for certain men of Cologne, friends of the man of God, had hired them) part our own people, friends now of the Premonstratensians: and they contended in the work, the one party on one side of the church, the others on the other accelerating. And the building grew most swiftly, and in the time of nine months the temple was perfected and consummated, and consecrated by the aforesaid Bishop Bartholomew.

[60] the altar being broken up, But because sad things are wont to be mingled with glad, adverse with prosperous, on the same day of consecration a certain misfortune happened. For when the innumerable multitude, which had come together for the feast from remote parts, ran emulously to the offering and to the circuit of the altar, as is wont to happen; the high altar was moved, and the stone broken up, and the consecration nullified, as authority prescribes, and all the labor reduced to nothing. The man was terrified, and saddened; yet fearing more the scandal of the little ones, than distrustful about the divine works, which are not done without cause. But what did that man do? The strength of consolation in the Lord finally being resumed, who was wont to drink and swallow temptations of this kind, he secretly with the Bishop appointed a day for the church to be dedicated anew on the Octave of Blessed Martin. a repeated consecration was needed. And so it was done: who as long as he lived, on account of this cause, asserted that another renovation was to be made in future times. This those saw who were present at that time, and certain ones who succeeded: but also those succeeding will see more; because, the Truth being witness, he who believes, the works which He does, he also does, and greater than these he does. And elsewhere: If you will believe, you shall see greater than these. John 14. 12, John 1. 50 Let these things said about the material building suffice. But what meanwhile the man did, or what happened to the little flock, must not be kept silent. But because, what at the same time happened to him, and what at the same time happened to them, it is not possible for anyone to discourse in the same moment in the order of narration; let no hearer wonder, if by turns the pen passes to those things, which about the acts of individuals and about innumerable events ought not to be passed over. a

ANNOTATION G. H.

CHAPTER XI.

Temptations overcome. The possessed freed.

XXIX

[61] The man finally went out to preach, went out again to sow the seed, not his own, but the Lord's seed; those being left who should preside over the begun work, those being left who should preside over all other things, St. Norbert being absent and conserve all things intact, and those who should preside over the convent both of clerics and of laics; placing two and two in the individual offices, whom at the last farewell he taught about peace and unanimity, saying; that any gathered multitude could never wander astray, which the concord of the Prelates had preceded. But the Shepherd departing, the wolf with rabid mouth contrives snares against the sheep. Snares I would truly call them, because digging out their folds from the opposite side, he secretly enters: that first he may strike terror, may cast down the terrified with the hammer of his tail,

may slaughter the cast down, and afterward may devour and destroy the slaughtered with gaping mouth. But because his arrogance is greater than his strength, he well at first struck terror: for to certain ones, as if they were enemies of mortal hatred, whom they had left in the world, with armed hand as if to slay, even in the light of day, with his satellites he presented himself. demons hostile to the companions But they terrified, at those coming in the appearance of an armed army, and the pomp of arms and the neighing of horses, in whatever ways they could, opposed themselves; so that when they fled, staves and stones being swiftly snatched, their arms also being wrapped, they hastened to resist with some supports or with the tunic. But, what seems wonderful and incredible to someone, so sharply was it fought, that they thought darts were thrown and they threw, were struck and they struck, were wounded and they wounded, were killed and they killed. To whom when many other Brothers ran together, rebuking them, why they so raged: Do you not see, they say, that we are oppressed by our enemies, and now cut almost to pieces we die to irrecoverable reproach?

[62] they are put to flight by holy water and the sign of the Cross: Then the Brothers, knowing them to be deluded by the infestation of demons, sprinkle holy water, make the sign of the Cross; and the throng of malign spirits withdrawing, they as if the enemies being conquered and turned to flight, with hasty course pursued, crying out with loud voices: Ho, ho, turn and resist, warring bravely; otherwise you will die a most base death, if henceforth you presume to approach us, and bring threats and death. But after, returned to themselves, certain of them recognize that they were deluded, those persist bravely thereafter, who bravely conquered. But certain ones not able to bear the ignominy of so great a mockery, and despairing of perseverance, struck by the sting of the demon's tail, withdrew. But because to this malign and false spirit it is not enough, the same demons strive to deceive them, nor does he wonder if he absorb the sea, but strives to swallow the whole Jordan too; he who could not openly seduce wholly, again presumptuously taking more hidden snares, does not fear to return. For there had come together in the same poverty a multitude from various nations and of various kind, noble and ignoble, rich, poor, of greater and lesser age, wise, simple and ignorant, as that man was wont to receive, in this made an imitator of the Gospel: Everyone who comes to me I will not cast out. John 6. 37 Among whom that deceitful spirit considering certain ignorant ones, and recognizing them to be once his own vessels, in which he was wont to have a dwelling for his rest and will; filled them with such great false wisdom of his deception, that those who before could scarcely read in any book, now said certain great things of books, and by prophesying about future things preached greater and stupendous things.

[63] One of them also asserted that he knew the prophecy of Daniel, and spoke certain things about it with falsehood as leader, where the Prophet by writing brings in about the four, and seven, and ten horns and Kings, and about Antichrist. and they make a certain one discourse on things above him In which he had now rendered certain simpler ones attentive, and, if it could be done, would have led even the man of God, and the venerable Simon, Abbot of St. Nicholas, into error; because his arrogance proceeded so far, that even with them sitting by he presumed to make a sermon in the Chapter. And he who saw, and heard, bears testimony of this matter: and this is its sign, that he brings forth the beginning of the sermon. For this was the sermon: Be strong in war, and fight with the ancient serpent. This that lying spirit brought forth through that assumed organ, but to the truth which follows, namely, And you shall receive the eternal kingdom, he could in no way proceed. Whence when Father Norbert signaled to a certain man, what seemed to him; he answered: Good Master, in a short time it will be manifest. Furthermore while that false spirit saw himself in part detected by the hearers of truth and sweetness, as he is a thousand-craftsman, he seeks more craftily other kinds of deception; that since he could not subvert the cooperators of the manifest operation, he might at least cut off any contemplatives from contemplation. For that same Cleric, and through the same one made ill the minister of this iniquitous labor, is seized by a certain sudden most grievous infirmity. And he who before gave answers about visible things, presumed to set his mouth toward heaven to invisible and ineffable things.

[64] The Brothers run together, as is the custom, to anoint him; they run together, to hear the things he said. Of himself indeed great things, but also of very many standing around he asserted greater things. Of himself, that on that same evening, either he would be with the Angels in heaven, or would stand healthy with the other Brothers in the choir; but of others, considering the fitness of each, as if prophesying and auguring he said: they say many things known to God alone; This one, when lately I was caught up in ecstasy to the upper regions, I saw called to eternity; that one already placed in the seat of felicity; the bed of that one prepared in the same felicity: this one a future Bishop, this one to be constituted Rector and master of many Regulars; this one about to persevere in the good purpose, this other failing about to withdraw. These things being said, he betook himself as if to exhale his last breath, for the space of one hour lying thus on the ground, as is wont to happen to those about to die at once; then the first sound of Vespers being heard he rose, and with swift course with the others entered the choir. Which when the bystanders beheld, one to another, confessing their scandal, attested that they were deluded. But not even thus indeed did that ancient and most malign ambusher cease, devoid of all goodness and truth, they make another expound the Apocalypse and most malign inventor of all crimes. For he raised up another Cleric likewise, who as that one had drawn a seductive spirit about the Prophet Daniel, so this one no less promised that he knew, and ought to search out, of John the Apostle's Apocalypse the gifts of heavenly secrets. Whom when one of the Priors had brought into the Chapter, Behold, he said, now at last the Orient from on high has visited us; because this one no long-continued exercise of the schools instructed, nor labor reckoned by the number of years taught, but a certain Angelic revelation, which through the whole night, under the silence of darkness, labored to instruct him diligently, and us through him. Let us hear him therefore, that from him we may learn, what he learned of lofty things in the Apocalypse through excess of mind.

XXX

[65] Certain of the Brothers hearing this, to whom now in part the subtlety of the deceitful spirits was known, altogether prohibited it, saying; Henceforth we wish to hear neither this one nor any other in a sermon, and at length they set both against each other. before Father Norbert returns. Seeing therefore that most lying spirit, that his brightness, by which he transfers himself into an Angel of light, was repelled; like a roaring lion, which hungers and goes about seeking whom to devour; as if stirred to wrath, no longer able to lie hidden, openly he began to exercise his savagery and the fuel of hatred, which he bore against the congregation and the well-ordered battle-line. First indeed between those two, whom he had so deluded, and through whom he had tried to ensnare others by mocking, he placed such great enmities of discord, that if one could seize the other anywhere, he would kill him; and unless they were held by bolts and snares, one of them would have found no place of escaping. Then that most importunate ambusher, who heaps iniquity upon iniquity, that he may place a heavy burden aggravated upon the innocent, seized a certain youth the son of a certain Convert, A demon besieging a youth, and entering began wickedly to torment him. And he who by his manifold art could not subvert the whole flock, strove in every way at least to leave him broken off. What should the flock do without a shepherd, against whom the wolf thus lay in wait on every side? They stood astonished and wondering, what these so frequent assaults were, who had not been accustomed to bear arms of this kind. Yet they shut up that demoniac bound, until counsel be taken what needs to be done.

[66] he is exorcized by his Prior; And the silence of night being made, when the Prior, who then presided over the others, wished to enter to him; still standing outside, somewhat far from the house, all the doors also being closed, nor was there a hole through which he could be seen, and also because there was darkness; the demon within with a loud voice began to cry: Now he will enter to me, now he will enter to me; now he comes, now he comes that master with his patched tunic: cursed be he; fasten the door firmly, fasten it most quickly. Not on this account did that man yield, but proceeded, and knocking at the door entered. And standing before him said: Tell me, I ask, what is it that you speak? He answered: Do you ask me what I speak, or, who I am who speak? I will indicate neither to you. Are you the master, or the guardian of that one, or the leader of the others? Withdraw, withdraw, he said, most quickly, lest injured by me you withdraw ignominiously. But he certain that it was a wicked spirit, and that it had very often come to deceive, which now at last had entered to slay; and adjured through Jesus, I adjure you, he said, by Jesus Christ the son of God, who conquered your snares on the cross; and the power, which you had unjustly and fraudulently snatched over the man, He justly and powerfully received back; that, who you are, you presume not to conceal. He said: Will you so compel me? He answered: Not I. He compels you who at another time, as was set forth, conquered you through the cross. And that wicked demon crying out: Woe is me! woe is me! what shall I do? I am, he said, that same one who was in the girl of Nivelle before Norbert your master, the white dog; cursed be the hour in which he was ever born.

[67] Thus that man certain about his importunate persecutor of himself and others, calls together the whole Convent; and indicating all these things, he manifests himself asks what is to be done about this. They counsel being taken, yet timid, as being novices, who had not been accustomed to these things; receive bodily discipline, appoint fasts and prayers among themselves, bless water in a vessel fit for this, and with a Procession go where the demon was. He therefore began to rage, and with a great noise to cry: Let ours come to this battle; for we are more: and we will crush them, as grains of wheat are wont to be crushed by a stone, and we will utterly destroy them. To whom when the Prior answered: So you will do, if you have received power from God. He turned to him, and with hands extended, as if he wished to tear the garments, with which he was clothed, said: Do you think yourself to be the master of these? And extending his finger to the cross, which the boy held there; and confesses himself tormented by the Crucified: He, he said, is the master, not you. For you I will do nothing: but He is the one by whom I am tormented. The demons confess Jesus Christ crucified, and

fear: the Jews having the law, and false Christians do not acknowledge, but detest and laugh. He was loosed, in whom the wicked spirit was; but when he could scarcely be held by many bystanders, a certain young Cleric of the Convent, taking up presumption out of true obedience, to which he was wholly devoted, said: Let it be commanded me through obedience, and I will hold him, not with my hands, but with the hands and chains of obedience. To whom when the precept had been given, and the others had withdrawn; he alone held him, and led him up to the holy water. But the demon trembled at the sight of him, as any little child is wont to tremble at the rods set before him for whipping.

XXXI.

[68] He is placed in exorcized water, exorcisms are read, adjurations are made, Gospels are read, some of the Brothers weeping, others in prayer, others in bodily disciplines, or in other afflictions; and at length he is compelled to go out. yet all wondering at his useless answers and jocular speeches. What more? At length after excessive and innumerable fatigues of the most wretched little body, the demon settling upon the tongue of the demoniac, placed himself in the manner of a grain of the blackest lentil; and the mouth being opened, and the tongue drawn out, showed himself to all the bystanders, saying: Behold me, but for all of you I will not go out today. To whom when it was answered: You are a liar, and from the beginning you did not stand in the truth, nor is anyone of the faithful to believe you; not long after, emitting the sound of a most stinking stench, he went out, leaving intolerably foul traces. And immediately the body emptied of its tormentor fell, and reclined on a certain little bed, after a long-continued recreation, scarcely recovered from that sickness. The Brothers therefore being wonderfully and manifoldly fatigued, and disquieted by the artificial craftiness of this demon; the demon himself impatient of all quiet, Another possessed man at Maastricht, and in no way acquiescing in the quiet of peace, when he found no place of his seduction among the simple, with easy flight, as he is light by natural swiftness, swiftly passed to Maastricht, where Father Norbert was; and seized a certain man, the steward of a certain Prince; that he who could not dissolve the battle-line, which he had left well composed, might at least cast a dart at the Standard-bearer, and through the Standard-bearer try to administer the weapons of death in the battle-line.

[69] he is brought to the Saint sacrificing: For there was in the same town a day of annual celebration, when the people are wont to come together to a solemnity of this kind. And then there had come together there many, and the Priest of God Norbert was celebrating in the greater church, where the throng of the people was greater; where also was that man, seized by the demon during the Secret; who with great tumult and uproar was scarcely held bound. The solemnities of Masses therefore being finished, he was brought to him with the great support of the people standing around, and awaiting the contest of the soldier of Christ and the demon. But he, as he was still clothed in sacred vestments, whom that one, though his companions dissuaded, nay girded with the power of the Holy Spirit, and fortified with the breastplate of justice, and the shield of faith and truth, proceeded to vanquish that most importunate enemy. And when certain Brothers standing around said to him, that he should spare his weakness, because it was now evening, and this event was casual, nor could all chances be amended; he being moved, both by countenance and by a grave response repelled them, saying: You do not know, Brothers; you do not know, I say; that by the envy of the devil death entered into the world, which still persists in it; nor will it ever have the will of repenting. For this one obtrudes himself so frequently and importunately for this, that he may both render me hateful; and make the word of God, which is ministered through me, grow cheap in the hearts of the hearers; and from those, who have received it, although he cannot do so secretly, yet evidently out of his innate arrogance he labors to take it away. Has not the exposition of truth sounded in your ears, which says, That the devil comes to take away the seed of the word of God from their hearts?

[70] These things he said, and the demoniac being placed before the altar, he set about the exorcism, setting about to exorcize; compelling the demon to go out. And when he had put exorcized salt into his mouth, he with great force spat into the face and into the eyes of the Priest, saying: You have already given counsel that I be put into water, that there beaten with the hardest scourges I might be whipped almost to death. In vain you strive, your scourges do not hurt me, your threats do not terrify, death does not torment, nor do the chains of death bind me. Counsel, as was set forth, had been given, that he be put into exorcized water, but with the same furious man absent. When therefore both clergy and people stood around, some for curiosity, revealing the sins of the bystanders some for piety; the most wicked demon through the mouth of the invaded man, began to reveal the most wicked life of many, and adulteries and fornications, and whatever was not covered by Confession, was revealed by his malicious mouth. Hearing this, all began to flee away hither and thither, a few remaining with Father Norbert. And when now the day was inclined, evening being made, those who were present wearied by fasting and the vigils of the preceding night, compelled him to the lodging, that he might take rest a little while, and refresh his weak limbs with some refreshment, and feigning that he had gone out, and recreate himself by sleeping. Where when he sat at supper with his Brothers and certain guests, it was announced to him, that that sick man sat quiet, and loosed before the altar, prayed pardon for the things committed and the curses which he had foully brought in. They gave thanks to God; for truly that night and on the next day, as if he were cured, he appeared.

[71] But there was among the citizens of the same town a certain mortal hatred, at which when on the next day through the whole day Father Norbert had labored for composing peace, and entirely, grace aiding, had composed all things in peace and quiet; immediately the devil who had been expelled from their hearts, as if gladly departing, entered into the same wretched man, who seemed cured; who immediately began again to gnash and rage. The Priest of God having returned from the church; and returned anew: Do you not know, say the bystanders, that that yesterday's possessed man is mad? unless he be helped as quickly as possible, and as quickly cured, consumed by his own fury he will perish. The man of God answering; He cannot, he said, now be freed from his tormentor; because his sins requiring it this happened to him (for he held the office of steward of the village) and deservedly he is delivered to his tormentor. after three days he drives it out. Leave him now, that after he has vexed him for some days, satisfaction being received, that most wicked demon may be more easily expelled. The wise man and learned in waging the wrestling-match with unclean spirits, for three days permitted him to be tormented and vexed; and after this by divine mercy he was cured of it, so that master of his mind and unharmed he returned to his own affairs.

CHAPTER XII.

Blessed Godfrey of Cappenberg converted: the same marriage persuaded to Count Theobald who was thinking of it.

XXXII

[72] At that time the fame running most frequently and most celebratedly on account of the marks of so great a man, a certain most powerful Count of Westphalia, a Godfrey by name, was pricked with the spirit of poverty; who came to him, Blessed Godfrey of Cappenberg being converted because he had heard many things of him: but when he found still greater things, the Holy Spirit who worked through him teaching, he opened to him all his counsel and will: and he who had now wholly devoted himself to God within, without delay is fully taught outwardly about leaving all things, and about embracing voluntary poverty. For he was rich, powerful in arms, as being a young man, well enriched with many estates, men-servants and maidservants; all which being at once renounced, he delivered himself and all his things to God to be disposed through the hands of the man of God; with this agreement indeed interposed, that he should transform the heights of his own house, namely the castle of b Cappenberg, for the sake of consecrating; that where the execration of vices had reigned, the consecration of divine blessing might there make a place for virtues. What should the young man do, about to wage a most grievous contest? A most grievous war I would truly call it; because he had a wife and a brother younger than he, who in every way contradicted whatever he had disposed to do. his wife, brothers, and father-in-law oppose. His feudal men also contradicted, his men-servants and maidservants, and all his ministerials. Count c Frederick the father of his wife contradicted, and said that for a great part the alms which he had made was of the dowry of his daughter. What shall I say? His hand against all these, and the hands of all these against him. War is waged, not with material arms, but with faith; not with contentions, but with reason; not with a multitude of armed men, but with the suffrage of Angels, and helmeted with heavenly hope, and breastplated with supernal virtue. two being softened At length humble importunity conquered, which heavenly hope of beatitude and perfect humility had opportunely planted and accompanied. It conquered indeed, because d the wife consented; and e the brother, the leonine fury being laid down, took up lamb-like gentleness, and the habit of Religion, which he knew Count Godfrey himself to wish, each one received. Father Norbert rejoiced, the Count also rejoiced; and all things being rendered to Caesar which were Caesar's, and those of God being retained for God, he built three Churches of his own allodial lands, Father Norbert ordaining. In which Brothers being placed, and Religion ordained, while the service of God was elegantly fulfilled, there was not lacking temptation and the persecution of malign spirits.

[73] For Count Frederick, the father of the Count's wife, indulging his ambition, the obstinate Father-in-law, because the castle of Cappenberg had held the lordship of Westphalia; pretending it to be the dowry of his daughter, threatened the Brothers, that unless they withdrew from it as quickly as possible, he would kill them all. Sometimes too with his cavalry he came up even there, threatening Father Norbert, that if he held him, he would hang him with his ass, that on an equal scale he might experience, which of them was heavier. To such proud speech the Bishops or other Princes who were present contradicted; and threatening many things to the Saint and for this word too they threatened the wrath of God upon him. For now that Father Norbert, around the Rhine and beyond the Rhine, was held by all of more worth; nor could they equally bear, if by anyone he were threatened or cursed. But the Brothers of Cappenberg set in straits, and having no liberator, except God, from the hand of the powerful and iniquitous man, sent to their Father that he would help them, and likewise announcing the arrogant words of the proud man. Which message being received, the strength of faith and hope being collected, in Him and through Him who said, Be confident, I have conquered the world, he betook himself wholly to him; and publicly pronounced, that he would enter that man's land with his ass, and would make himself available. John 16. 33 What more? he is wretchedly and suddenly extinguished Although the journey was long, yet he was unwilling to change his ass; but the Rhine being crossed, soon as with his ass unarmed

and weak he entered the land of that Count Frederick f: [the corselet of his belly being burst, the same Frederick sitting at the midday meal, burst in the middle] nor long after that most atrocious enemy seized by sickness died; and gave the end of his malice and of his life at the same time. Therefore it must be noticed, who and whose soldier that one was, who sitting on an ass, the sword of God's wrath being brandished from afar, in vengeance of himself and his Brothers, pierced the enemy, and received triumph over the monstrous tyrant. So all things being pacified, and God-fearing Brothers being chosen, in three, as was set forth, churches of the same allodium he ordained the service of God to be performed at all times, namely Cappenberg, g Ilbenstadt, and h Varlar; in which up to the present day the Congregation of many Brothers and Sisters flourishes, and in divine worship honest religion flourishes.

XXXIII

[74] Many things about so great a Father can be narrated, but yet very many are passed over; because it does not happen to any one person to know all things, which God wrought through him. For he was truly a burning lamp, conspicuous enough in modern times; a light placed not under a bushel, but upon a mountain; and both in Germany and in France his name was held great and manifest. Whence it happened, that when he returned into France, and the fame of the conversion of the aforesaid Prince was divulged, many wondering; because with the habit he had changed into religion both his castles and the militia of his castles, moved by Godfrey's example, Count Theobald and had destroyed his whole County, and consigned all things to the service of God; moved and pricked by the example of this one a certain most noble Prince of France, namely Count i Theobald, went to the man of God, about to seek counsel in a like manner about his salvation, and about the remission of his sins. But considering the eloquence of the man of God, and the elegance of his countenance, and the maturity in his words and answers; by the affection of piety his mind was so suffused in the love of the sweetness of God and of all gentleness, that he immediately would subject himself wholly, with all his possession, to the power of the Man of God: offers himself and his to St. Norbert likewise, for he too was a man prudent and well learned, and wisely and praiseworthily gathered sound doctrine and the wisdom of the words of God in his heart. But the Man of God in turn seeing the noble heart of the generous Prince, and the noble and devout offering which dividing well of himself he offered, and the holocaust which he made of all his things and riches, a few days' respite for answering being received, commended this counsel more attentively to the Lord God.

XXXIV

[75] who, the matter being maturely weighed before God, For he had understood that that Prince had most ample resources, and very many castles, nor could all things easily be destroyed and consigned to a certain Religion, both on account of the diminution of the kingdom; and on account of the destruction of many other noble Princes, who under the same Prince were feudal Princes. He had heard also, that he was most lavish in giving alms, in building churches, cloisters, and the other workhouses of the Religious; adding also great help of other necessities. He had likewise heard that this man was a father of orphans, the spouse of widows, the food-bearer of the poor, moreover the solace of k lazars: nor in him did the man in all things discreet presume to order the life of another custom, whom he considered to have been chosen by God a minister of all these things. But that one awaited an answer about the contempt of the world and the renouncing of all things: to whom the man of God; counsel being received divinely after the respite given, It will not be so, he said: for the yoke of the Lord, as you have begun, you will bear with the yoke of conjugal society; and your seed, with the blessing of your fathers preceding, will obtain your most ample land: because it is not lawful for us to destroy in you, the things which the divine disposition before all times wished to ordain about you in these latest times. he rather persuades him to marriage, At this the Prince subjoined: If thus, he said, you confirm it necessary, Reverend Father, by the will of God; the Lord's is the earth, and its fullness, nor ought anyone to obtain anything from it except through Him. Since therefore from Him you command this, I have nothing to gainsay; but let it be certain to you, that I will lead none into matrimony, except whom the Lord God shall have wished to join to me through you. Let every hearer therefore weigh, how great was the virtue of discretion in the man, who of two Princes made one leave all things, but commanded the other, as having nothing, to possess all things. For he considered in the one, that he snatched even others' things from the needy: but he considered in the other, that he did not cease to bestow his own on the indigent. The man of God had now then disposed the Roman journey, for establishing the Order of his Brothers, and procures a wife for him. and for confirming their things conferred on him by God. The Legates of the Count therefore being taken, he led them with him as far as Regensburg. For the l Bishop of that city was of most noble lineage, and had a most powerful brother, namely Engelbert m, a certain Marquis, who had daughters of marriageable age, of whom one being sought n, was granted to be given in marriage to Count Theobald.

ANNOTATIONS G. H.

CHAPTER XIII.

A blind woman and a demoniac cured. The heresy of Tanchelin extirpated at Antwerp.

[76] The Legates returned announcing these things, and Father Norbert undertaking the begun journey, To the Saint returning to Rome came to Rome, where by the Pope a Honorius of blessed memory he was honorably received; and whatever he justly sought from him, he gladly received. And all things being performed, when he now thought of returning, on a certain night at the highest dawn, when he himself meditated in God, and certain of his Companions, whom he had as the solace of his journey, a voice was heard by them manifestly, announcing that he would be the future Bishop of Magdeburg, an episcopate is foretold by a heavenly voice denouncing it. These things being heard wondering they were astonished, nor did any of them dare to confess to another what he had heard. For he had sent ahead one of his Clerics to announce to the Count his return, and to receive an answer, what about the matrimony pleased him, which through his Legates he had heard had been sought for him. But he himself returning, by chance had his passage through a certain city named Würzburg, which at that time was lacking a Bishop. And the people and clergy compelled him (for it was Easter) to celebrate that among them. he himself at Würzburg Him therefore being detained, when on the holy day he was celebrating the greater Mass, and it had come to the most sacred reception of the Lord's body and blood, there approached him a blind woman, who was known to all: and he, recently suffused with the breath of the Lord's blood, breathing into her eyes, she received light. Whence when into the admiration of praise, all the assisting people extolled the magnificence of God with loud voices, he gives light to a blind woman, it happened that certain rich men of the chief of the city being pricked, and kindled into the love of God, rendered themselves and their things to God through the hands of the man of God: of whose property and possession a church is recognized to have been built there, which is famous for divine worship up to the present day. But remembering the voice, which they had heard at Rome, that very man of God and his Brothers, because Magdeburg (Parthenopolis) and Würzburg (Herbipolis) both names of the cities made an ending in "polis," fearing lest he be taken up into Bishop, by those who magnified him beyond measure, on account of the magnificent work of God which had happened there, hastily going out from the city they withdrew.

XXXV

[77] The power therefore being received from the Roman Pontiff, about the proposed institution and the established Order, when he had returned to the place of his poverty, namely Prémontré, at Laon he ordains an Abbot, immediately he confirmed what he had done before, namely the Church of Blessed Martin, which is situated at Laon in the suburb, which under an b Abbot, when it was still in excessive poverty, he had ordained. Which how much it grew in spiritual and temporal building, and on what land planted it fixed its root, let the trees engrafted from it through the various nations of the earth tell, let the fruit most sweetly redolent from them proclaim; and let those who saw and were cooperators, succeeding up to eternity, bear testimony to those succeeding. He also had an Abbot ordained in the c church of Viviers, which he had undertaken in the district of Soissons; where also the demon, who

persecuted him, at the entrance of the Brothers immediately enters into a certain man, as it is written, For Assur also came with them: likewise at Viviers, whom Father Norbert, God cooperating, freed in this manner. He indeed, as he was wont yesterday and the day before, had gone out to perform his agriculture: and while he thirsted from the doubled heat of labor, he approached the nearest spring: and while he bent down to drink, he saw an immense and horrible shadow in that water: terrified by which vision, while he refrains from the taste of the water, raised up he saw as it were a great person of a man with terror asking, Whose man he was. Ps. 82. 9 Which being said where it disappeared, immediately overrun by the demon he began to rage.

[78] The hour was almost after noon, and near the village; whence also found toward evening, where the possessed man he was led bound. Whom when Father Norbert had diligently beheld; You see, he said, how the malign spirit, who envies all good men, strives to make us hateful even in this place? For he labors to sow such a rumor, that at our entrance this mark of infamy follows; and this is a sign, that these evils precede: but by the grace of God, because it will not prevail. Then he began to sign the man and to exorcize until he should rest, and bring forth sound words. he exorcizes, For he asked by praying the holy Mother of God, in whose honor the church was consecrated, that she would have mercy on him. Which seeing those who stood by, they greatly rejoiced, giving thanks to God, and saying: Ho, blessed be God in all things, now this Father of ours can rest a little, because wearied he came hither, newly coming from a long journey. But he who, as has often been said, had the discernment of spirits, and pacifies for a time, approaching nearer, when he had perceived a most stinking stench going out from the nostrils of that possessed man; It is not, he said, as you think; because that wicked spirit never withdrew, but lies hidden in this reed, and speaks composed words, out of fear of the divine power, that he be not expelled; but, we withdrawing, that he may be able more sharply to torment this wretched man. Nevertheless not without cause is he delivered to this adverse power: let us permit him this night, that he may pay the due penalties by this vexation, praying for him; and perhaps on the next day God will more easily have mercy on him. And so it was done. But the truth of the matter and the indications of the following truth, and on the following day frees him: proved the words of the Priest to be true. For as they withdrew from him, that seized man began much more wickedly to gnash and rage than he had done before. But on the next day the man of God returned to him; and in the sight of an innumerable people, as it were standing for a spectacle, the sick man was rendered healthy by the grace of God, and returned to his own house with all integrity of sense.

XXXVI

[79] These things about that demoniac have been said by digression, that the things which were done, as far as can be done, may be discoursed in their order and place. For it must not be passed over, why he was called to undertake the Church of Antwerp: For there was and is at Antwerp a place, a most ample and populous town, Antwerp, under one fornicating Priest, in which there was only one Priest, who had to govern the care of the whole people dwelling there; but on account of the excessive multitude and frequent negligence he could not, nor was he believed; because he himself too, as if in marriage and carnal union, had openly made his niece in the third line a partner of his crime. For this cause that people, like a flock without a shepherd, deviated in many vanities of errors: whence it happened, that a certain heretic, of wonderful subtlety and craftiness, a seducer, Tanchelin d by name, coming there, found in that people a place of his seduction. He was finally the most wicked of all men, and an enemy of God and of all His Sacraments, and contrary to all Religion and the Christian faith, so much, that he said the obedience of Bishops and Priests was nothing; and denied that the reception of the most sacred Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ profited toward perpetual salvation; and led that people, to whom now for many times the truth of these things had not been announced, into the same error. infected with the filth of Tanchelin, About three thousand fighting men believed him, and followed him; nor was there a Duke or Bishop, or any Prince, who dared to resist or meet him, nor to appear before him, unless he followed his sect. With precious apparatus, in gilded garments, his hair twisted with a triple cord, and tripled with a band of gold-embroidery, he walked; and with persuasive words and great apparatus of banquets he exhausted their benevolence, to seduce them. A wonderful and stupendous thing! They drank his bathwater, and carrying it off in place of Relics laid it up. And when he corrupted daughters in the presence of their mothers, and brides with their husbands seeing; he asserted it was a spiritual work; so much, that she called herself unhappy, who had not deserved to be mingled in this nefarious conjunction. This most base and detestable execration of seduction, even after the death of that heretic could in no way be extirpated; although a congregation of twelve Clerics was placed there by the Bishop, for the help of the Priest, who was alone in the Church of St. Michael.

[80] But then indeed the Clerics, charity persuading, and this evident necessity compelling, gave to Father Norbert and e his Brothers, through the hands of the Bishop, this same church with some revenues; the church of St. Michael is given; trusting, that God by the merits of him and his Brothers, would take away the savagery of the death-bearing plague; and the darkness of ignorance being driven off, would repair the light of truth. The church therefore was undertaken, and the Clerics built another for themselves in the same town; which both remain up to the present day, consigned to the service of God. But Father Norbert, skilled Brothers being placed, who should apply a vital medicine to the death-bearing wound; they too began to sow the word of God, and to offer eloquence how sweet to their throats above honey and the honeycomb, ministering to the sick a sweet dish, and to the weak the bread, which strengthens the heart of man and bestows eternal life, and converts the citizens. announcing. For he said: Brothers, do not wonder, and do not fear: you through ignorance followed falsehood, thinking it to be truth; which if anyone had taught you before, as you were found easy to perdition, so you would be found easier to seize salvation. Hearing therefore the word, and seeing the works which followed, certain ones pricked returning, men and women, brought back the Lord's Body, which they had laid up in chests or in holes for ten or fifteen or very many years. Who would not be astonished over this detestable crime? who would say, that it is not to be commended to memory and to posterity, that both the most wicked seducer fraudulently seduced this people; and the pious preacher Norbert by himself, and through his own, led it back to the way of truth and justice? This narration can be judged superfluous by the hearers: but the transition to what follows cannot be had evident, unless the attestation of the preceding work teach this sometime.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

even with the same words; this special, that he asserts him to have been of excessive subtlety, when yet he was a layman, but sharper in speech than many even eloquent Clerics; and that through three thousand of his followers, he raged with slaughters against those resisting him: he adds also some things about his death, to be set forth more conveniently below, after the Letter of the people of Utrecht.

EMBOLISM.

The Letter of the Church of Utrecht to Frederick Bishop of Cologne about the seducer Tanchelm.

From the edition of Sebastian Tengnagel.

To its Lord and Venerable Father Frederick, Archbishop of the holy Church of Cologne, the humble Church of Utrecht, out of sincere affection most devout prayers, with the due obedience of subjection.

[1] We give thanks, Reverend Father, to your Sanctity; because with paternal mercy you grieved for our lot, Thanks being given for the captured Tanchelm and retarded the course and impetus of our Antichrist, the disturber and blasphemer of the Church of Christ. Who opened his mouth toward heaven, and against the Sacraments of the Church dared to raise up a heresy, already long ago slain by the sentences of the holy Fathers. For he, swelling with the spirit of pride (which is the root of all heresy and apostasy), asserted that the Pope was nothing, the Bishops nothing, the Archbishops nothing, the Priests or Clerics nothing; and shaking the pillars of the Church of God, he dared even to divide the rock of our faith, that is, Christ. He contended that the Church was with him and his only: the Church, which Christ received from the Father, the nations for His inheritance, and for His possession the ends of the earth; this, he tried to contract to the Tanchelmists alone.

[2] they set forth his rise. But now, holy Father, receive the complaints of our affliction, and observe the Forerunner of Antichrist, in the same scheme, in the same footsteps, by which that one is to follow, running before. In the maritime places first to a rude people and of weaker faith, he mingled the poison of his perfidy; and through matrons and little women (whose familiarities, and secret conversation, and private reclining he most gladly used) he began little by little to scatter his errors: then through these, he ensnared even the husbands themselves in the snares of his perfidy. And now not in darkness or chambers, but beginning to preach upon the housetops, in the open fields he spoke to the multitude widely poured around, and as a King about to harangue to the people, surrounded by satellites, bearing a banner and sword, accustomed to preach as if with royal apparatus, as if with royal insignia, about to make a sermon, he was wont to proceed. The seduced people heard him, as an Angel of God. Nay, truly himself an angel of Satan, he declaimed; that the Churches of God were to be reckoned brothels; that there was nothing, which was confected by the office of Priests at the Lord's table; pollutions, not Sacraments, to be named: that from the merits and sanctity of the ministers virtue accedes to the Sacraments; whereas from the words of St. Augustine; The Lord Christ sent His betrayer (whom he named a devil, who before the betrayal of the Lord could not even show fidelity in the Lord's money-bags) with the other Apostles to preach the kingdom of heaven; the virtue of the Sacrament depending on the minister, to demonstrate that the gifts of God come to those, who with faith receive; even if such be he, through whom they receive, as Judas was. On Ps. 10 Likewise Augustine; If in receiving the Sacraments the merit of the giver and receiver is to be considered; let it be of God the giver, and of my conscience the receiver. Ibid. For these two are not uncertain to me; His goodness, and my faith. Why do you interpose yourself, about whom I can know nothing certain? Let me say; In the Lord I trust. For, if I trust in you, whence do I trust, if you have done nothing evil this night? Against these and sentences of this kind that sacrilegious man declaiming, dissuaded the people from the reception of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord; prohibiting also Tithes to be paid to the Ministers of the Church; which he easily persuaded to the willing: because he preached only those things, which either by their novelty, or by the great will of the people, he knew would please.

[3] By such successes of wickedness so great a boldness of crime accrued to the wretched man, that he even said he was God; and to say he was God, asserting; that, if Christ is God for this reason, that He had the Holy Spirit; he was no less nor more unlike a God, because he had received the fullness of the Holy Spirit. In which presumption he so deluded, that certain ones venerated divinity in him, so much, that the water of his bath he divided to be drunk to the most foolish people as a blessing, as a more sacred and efficacious Sacrament, about to profit the salvation of body and soul. At a certain time too, while he contrived a new kind of gain by a new invention; a certain image of St. Mary (the mind is astonished to say it) he ordered to be brought into the midst of the multitude; and approaching, and to feign himself betrothed to Mary. and touching the hand of the image with his hand, under the type of her, betrothed St. Mary to himself. The sacrament and those solemn words of betrothal, as is wont to be done commonly, bringing forth all with sacrilegious mouth; Behold, he said, most beloved, I have betrothed the Virgin Mary to myself: do you exhibit the betrothal-gifts, and the expenses for the wedding. Setting forth two little boxes, one on the right, the other on the left of the image; Here, he said, let the men offer; there, the women. Let me now see, of which sex the greater charity is fervent around me and my bride. And behold the most insane people rushed to him emulously with gifts and offerings. The women threw their earrings and necklaces; and so, not without most monstrous sacrilege, he contracted infinite money.

[4] But also a certain smith, by name Manasses, whom we have heard detained by you too with the wicked man, Him with two disciples detained by the example of his most wicked master, had instituted a certain fraternity, which they commonly call a Gild; in which he constituted twelve men in the figure of the twelve Apostles, and only one woman in the figure of Blessed Mary; who, as they report, was led around through each of those twelve, and to the injury of the most sacred Virgin, with nefarious turpitude, as if for the confirmation of the fraternity, was mingled with each. A certain Priest also Everwacher by name, apostatizing from the Sacerdotal dignity, clung to the magistery of the nefarious man: who also following him to Rome, the maritime places, namely the fourth part of our Bishopric, by the authority of the Lord Pope, strove to attach to the Bishopric of Thérouanne of the Kingdom of France: whom also we have heard detained by your sanctity, and we have rejoiced. The same Priest, in all things an asserter of Tanchelm, invaded the tithes of the Brothers of the Church of St. Peter, ejected their Priest with armed hand from the altar and Church. Infinite, Lord, are their crimes; of which we have suppressed very many for Epistolary brevity. Let it suffice to have said this for the sum, that divine things have come into such contempt, that he is reckoned holier, to whomsoever the Church is more despised.

[5] Since therefore, holy Father, the divine mercy, not sustaining its Church to be longer endangered, delivered them into your hands, that Frederick not release them we ask and beseech in the Lord, that by no reason they slip out of your hands. Who, if they have slipped out, we denounce to you, and without all ambiguity attest, the future irrecoverable loss of our Church, and the destruction of infinite souls. Truly, Lord, our Church will sustain a most grievous fall, if in any way it happen that those escape, whose speech, according to the Apostle, creeps as a cancer, and by flattering destroys the souls of the simple. Now too for this very reason our Antichrist, feigning himself a Monk, by the example of that head, of which he was made a member, transfigured himself into an Angel of light, that he might delude the more securely, the more craftily he had taken up the simulated appearance of sanctity. We ask, Lord, that you be moved with just indignation against the detestable scatterers of the Church. but rather punish them, Augustine: When God wishes to stir up the Powers against schismatics, against heretics, against scatterers of the Church, against blasphemers of Christ, let them not wonder; because God stirs up, that Hagar be beaten by Sarah. Tr. 11 on John Let Hagar acknowledge herself: let her bow her neck, let her return to her Mistress. Why do they wonder, that the Christian powers are moved against the detestable scatterers of the Church? Should they then not be moved? and how would they render account of their empire? This pertains to Christian Kings, that in their times they should wish their mother the Church, whence they were spiritually born, to be pacified. We read the visions of Daniel, and the Prophetic deeds; the Three children in the fire praised God. King Nebuchadnezzar wondered at the children praising God, and at the fire harmless around them: and when that one had wondered, who had erected his statue, and had compelled all to adore it; yet moved by the praises of the children, when he saw the Majesty of God present in the fire, he said: And I will set a decree to all tribes and tongues in all the earth; whosoever shall speak blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, shall be unto destruction, and their houses unto perdition. If Nebuchadnezzar praised and proclaimed, and gave glory to God, that he might send a decree through his kingdom; how should Christian Kings not be moved against the blasphemers of the Church of Christ? Thus Augustine. Therefore we beseech in the Lord, that of these your Sanctity bring it about, that you take counsel by succoring our Church now long endangered.

ANNOTATION.

[6] The maritime places, namely the fourth part of the Bishopric of Utrecht, pertaining to the Germanic Empire, which the impious Everwacher strove, by the authority of the Lord Pope, to attach, that is annex, to the Bishopric of Thérouanne of the kingdom of France, I judge to be the land of the Four-offices, commonly de vier Ampten in Flanders, in the district of Rien, whose head is Antwerp, set across the Scheldt opposite, [From the attempted translation of the Zeeland Islands to the diocese of Thérouanne,] with the Zeeland Islands. These Robert Count of Flanders, surnamed the Frisian, possessed; the Hollanders pretended that the same were of their own right, supported by the aids of the Emperor Henry: but the Flemings (as at the year 1108 Meyer writes, with such a Leader seemed invincible; and Henry, no memorable thing being done returned inglorious, and peace being made at Mainz the Fleming retained what he possessed. Hence the desire could be born to Robert, that he should prefer the same lands of disputed right to be subject to the Bishopric of Thérouanne rather than that of Utrecht: and offering himself in this matter as agent before the Pontiff, Eberwacher could easily have acquired for himself both the favor of the Count of Flanders, and of John Bishop of Thérouanne.

[7] Hence furthermore occasion seems to be given of arriving at the knowledge of the time, in which the Letter was given; [it becomes probable that the Letter was written, Burchard of Utrecht being dead in the year 1112] to one observing namely, that the Clergy writes it, without any mention of their Bishop, and so probably after his death, the See being vacant. He had been that Burchard a man devout, pious, and peaceable, as John de Beka describes him, and in the year 1112, the 13th of his Bishopric, had departed from the living on the 15th of the Kalends of June. But I read in Meyer in the Annals

of Flanders, that in the year 1113 Tanchelin the heretic, falsely glorying in the monastic habit, condemned with anathema, was ejected from the priesthood and from the people of Bruges, from the city; and in the year 1115, that in the same year Tanchelin the heretic was slain: but this Robert de Monte more distinctly explaining, After many, he says, errors and many slaughters, while he was sailing, struck in the brain by a certain Priest, he fell. Therefore I conceive the matter thus done, that Tanchelin having gone out from the Zeeland Islands, scattered poisons through Imperial Flanders, [when Tanchelm feigning himself a Monk and returning from Rome was detained at Cologne,] together with the Four Offices themselves subject to the diocese of Utrecht, and infected also the people of Antwerp with the whole district of Rien, from the beginning of the 12th century up to the 8th or 9th year of the same; thence he betook himself to the Flemings, clients of the French Kingdom, and to the people of Thérouanne, the secular habit being laid aside feigning himself a Monk; daring even to set out for Rome under the appearance of sanctity; whence in the year 1112 it happened that he returning was detained at Cologne with his Companions, no doubt because on account of his evil odor at Rome and wherever he was the journey was abandoned. But escaped from custody he returned to Bruges, soon to be anathematized by the Clergy and people; then wandering through the maritime places which he had especially infected, until by a Priest, wishing to avenge the injury brought upon his Order in no good order, he was slain.

[8] Certainly that the turncoat was clothed in the habit of a Monk, not much before the Letter was written, [who slipped out thence, and returned to Flanders, in the same year was driven from Ghent:] that particle indicates, "Now too," namely after such great slaughters of souls in the diocese of Utrecht and in Antwerp nearest to it, although pertaining to that of Cambrai, produced under the secular habit; which Burchard of Cambrai about to repair, restored Canons to St. Michael of Antwerp; nor is it credible that Burchard of Utrecht likewise ceased. But both, the departure of the most wicked man to Rome being understood, would have done nothing alien from their office, if they took care to inform about the doctrine and morals of the most wicked man him, who then presided over the Apostolic Chair, Paschal II; when the Pontiff, the affairs in Italy being most disturbed, compelled to redeem peace from Henry on most iniquitous conditions, could attend less to denunciations of this kind. But the prisons which he escaped at Rome, the wicked man found at Cologne, with that success which we have seen; Burchard of Utrecht being now dead. But whether he slipped out thence before the denunciation of the Clergy of Utrecht was carried to Cologne, and therefore being more remissly guarded got a readier opportunity of escaping; or escaped otherwise, let each one determine as he wishes. I do not believe that he preached at Antwerp beyond the year 1108 or 9; since the Life of St. Norbert makes no mention of the Monastic habit taken up by him; yet I say that there was left there a ferment of wickedness, which could not be purged except by a new aspersion of the white Order. There is one who suspects that he was a man wealthy in these parts and powerful with some secular magistracy; yet he never returned to Antwerp. but when in the histories of the last century I read, how the Anabaptist kingdom of Münster in Westphalia a vile Tailor, John of Leiden, obtained and held; and in our age at Naples, a certain Tommaso Aniello, taken from the dregs of the fisher-folk, against the Nobility and the King; I require in Tanchelin no ornaments of lineage or fortune.

[9] As to what pertains to Burchard of Utrecht, about his effort against the heresiarch, I would not dare to presume such good things, if I believed it to be true, what Beka wrote about him; how before Hildebrand, Legate of the Apostolic See, Burchard of Utrecht accused of Simony through a grave anachronism, about to purge the crime of Simony with which he was defamed, and ordered to pronounce the little verse "Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit," named indeed the Father and the Son without fear, but could not name the Holy Spirit before he was deprived of his Bishopric, in the buying of which he was convicted to have been an associate of Simon Magus. These things, I say, if I believed they were truly said of Burchard of Utrecht, I would also judge that nothing worthy was done by him against Tanchelm; but rather I would think it was done by his fault, that the heresy prevailed; but with his Canons writing that his See was vacant, through the Simoniac Bishop, not by death, but by deposition for perhaps a good many years. But how could Beka not have seen, I do not say, how little that befell a man, such as he praises, devout and pious; it being recognized he is better excused. but how ineptly it is applied to him, who first in the year 1099 was created Bishop, that is 44 years after the time of the legation of Hildebrand into Gaul, for abolishing the perfidy of Simony. I am silent that in Gaul he was in no way to be judged, who had nothing in common with Gaul. He who afterward wrote the Life of Hildebrand then Gregory VII, and narrates the matter done in the Synod of Lyon num. 11, Paul of Bernried, from the frequent report of Pope Callistus; and from the very mouth of Hildebrand, Desiderius Abbot of Monte Cassino, afterward Pope Victor III, and St. Peter Damian, name neither the Bishop nor the Bishopric. But if this man, beyond probability, were established from elsewhere to have been of Utrecht; the one to be named would be William, than by denying a most worthy-of-faith miracle. brother of Wichard Prefect of Guelders, a man wholly Warlike, says Beka, and substituted for Bernulf, who died on the 14th of the Kalends of August 1054. Arnold Buchel, the Scholiast of Beka, not at all solicitous about proving the innocence of Burchard from the reason of the times, confidently pronounces, that the whole narration seems fabricated, to kindle hatred against the Emperor, whom they reported to be stained with the Simoniacal vice, because he urged the investiture of Prelates by staff and ring, received from his ancestors. This indeed is the over-confidence of a heretical spirit; to call into suspicion of calumny, joined with the base lie of a fictitious miracle, Authors most worthy of all faith and manifestly accusing the crime of sacrilegious buying, and making no mention of investiture, about whose right then it was still being disputed. But I do not know whether even in the very buying of the Bishopric the Calvinist would recognize anything of crime, accustomed from the dogma of Tanchelm through Calvin to despise the Sacrament of Order, and to attribute to the civil magistrate the whole right in sacred things, if that Sect has any sacred things.

CHAPTER XIV.

Demons often repelled. Wolves tamed.

XXXVII

[81] Among other things it must not be passed over, that when one night at Prémontré in the house of poverty, The holy man recognizes a demon lying hidden in the water, with certain Brothers sick and bled he had sat more than usual, conferring about heavenly hope and the glory of beatitude, and hearing those conferring; when in the silence of the secret night certain of them thirsted, it was sent to the spring that water be brought. Those returning therefore who had been sent, immediately as they entered the door of the cell, Why, said the Man of God, have you brought hither unclean water? But they astonished feared, and protested that they had brought a vessel well washed, and the purest water. And when it was poured from the pot into a cup, once and twice he had it thrown out from the same cup; altogether prohibiting, that anyone should taste of it even a little. And when a third time the whole was poured down to the bottom of the little pot, and a light being kindled they more clearly diligently beheld it, they saw a toad of wonderful size creeping in the cup, and were astonished. They could indeed be astonished, and wonder beyond measure; and orders it to be poured out. both because it was winter, when worms of this kind are not wont to appear; and because it was a most pure spring a, and they remembered the vessel had been most clean. Father Norbert seeing them astonished, What, he said, Brothers, do you wonder at? A thousand-craftsman is that wicked spirit, who persecutes us with enmity; but throw him out, because the arrogance of his craftiness and subtlety is greater than his strength. What therefore, O Reader, must be noticed about that man? Could he have met the unclean spirits by this subtle examination, unless the infusion of the Holy Spirit and superabundant grace had taught him?

XXXVIII

[82] At another time too, when certain Brothers had been in the wood to cut wood, The wolf demanding back its snatched prey, he orders it to be returned. they found a wolf devouring a roe. But crying out they put it to flight; and the prey being received, which the rapacity of the wolf had taken, they carried it home with them; and in a certain corner, suspecting nothing evil, hung it up. But the wolf, as if complaining of the injury brought upon it, followed them; and at the door of the house, which they had entered, sitting like any domestic dog, seemed to demand back what had been taken from it. But those who were arriving, not knowing what had been done, cried out over it, as is wont to be done, to put it to flight. But it looking at them with domestic countenance, remained immovable. Which when it was announced to the Man of God, all the Brothers being called together, he inquired what it was; saying, that not without cause had so rabid an animal taken up the front of this gentleness. But those Brothers fearing who were conscious of the cause, came forward into public; and asking pardon as if for a great excess, narrated the things which had been done, and the injury which they thought they had brought upon that wolf. Which the Man of God hearing, Give back, he said, to it what is its own; for you acted unjustly, taking what was not yours. The wolf at length its prey being received, harming no one, withdrew in peace.

XXXIX

[83] To a certain boy too, a shepherd of sheep, asking, since he had no dogs, what he should do, likewise that what another snatched be demanded back in his name. if any wolf should carry off a sheep from him; it was jocosely answered, that on behalf of his Master he should command, that it should not dare to carry it off or harm it. But not long after it happened, that that same one in his usual manner was keeping sheep in the field; and a wolf coming snatched one of them, and carrying it off with hasty course fled. Whom the Brother perceiving from afar, not unmindful of the precept, with a loud voice began to cry out: Whither do you flee, he said, The wolf lets go the snatched sheep at the name of St. Norbert: most malign robber, swifter than usual? Put down the sheep: put down, I say, it; this I command you, on behalf of my Master: and do not harm it, nor presume to carry it off further. And it immediately put it down unharmed, and he hasty carried it back lifted on his shoulders to the others.

[84] Whether it was that one or another, is not known. Yet it is known, that when on another day a certain Brother Cleric had been sent into the field to guard the animals, a wolf stood by them through the whole day with him present; and as if bearing the solace of guarding, displayed no fierceness. And when, evening approaching, it was the hour for the flock to be brought in; as on one side the Brother, so on the other side the wolf compelled the flock to enter. But the flock being brought in, when the Brother had closed the gate the wolf being excluded; as if complaining of the injury brought upon it, and asking the due wage to be rendered to it, it knocked with its foot, as it could, at the gate; the same guards and brings back the flock, it knocked with frequent blows, showing that it wished to enter, and to receive a portion of some food. Which when the Man of God had heard, Why, he said, do you not open to the guest knocking? To whom when it was answered, that it was not a guest, but a wolf, who importunately obtruded himself,

nor would withdraw for all of them; the Brothers being called he inquired, on what occasion it had come there. But when all kept silent, that Cleric being summoned, whom in the morning he had sent to guard the flock, he asked who had helped him in the guarding of the flock. But he, fearing to indicate what had happened to him, yet not presuming to conceal when questioned; That, he said, is the beast which knocks at the door, which today was with me, and the flock committed to me, as if it had been committed to it, kept with me, until it was shut within the gate. The Man of God hearing this, Give, yet not gratis. he said, it some fodder; for it requires a wage for the service rendered, because the laborer is worthy of his food. And when at the command of the Man of God meat had been thrown to it, as if for a wage it snatched it, and withdrew: who also not long after, from the hand of a certain boy keeping calves, on one occasion received bread. What is this, Brothers? Rabid beasts devoid of reason grow gentle, and obey men; the rational man closes his ear, and does not obey; as if He who formed the eye did not consider. Ps. 93. 9, Prov. 16. 7 The wretched man does not hear; that when his ways have pleased God, all his enemies shall be at peace with him. And elsewhere: The whole world shall fight against the senseless. Wisd. 5. 21 This the Man of God preached to all, this he taught his own, and in this manner flying before them demonstrated it by work.

[85] With manifold art, as has often been said, that envious enemy persecuted the battle-line, ordained to vanquish him; so much, that scarcely any of them, after the darkness of night returned, presumed to go out anywhere. But when one, against whom he greatly lay in wait, said that he was of little faith, and reproaching himself had taken up confidence, and alone had proceeded to the requirements of a private necessity; the demon stood before him, a very terrible figure of a man being assumed; and walking with a most black aspect, and as if about to carry him into the air, threatening menaces. But he, the strength of faith being collected, and the vigor of soul resumed, a demon terrifying a brother with spectres is driven off by the same. said within himself: How long shall I suffer this falsehood and phantasms of the most importunate enemy? And rising, when he wished to seize him, the demon was turned to flight. But he swiftly pursues the fleeing one; and coming to a tree b which stood nearby, began to wrestle at it, desiring to hold and bind the demon. But a small interval being made looking, he recognized this to be the tree, which he knew to be there. And by this virtue of soul the illusion of the venomous serpent being conquered, he suffered no fear afterward. Not only this man, but also another he presumed to attack in a like manner, striking the same terror, to whom he visibly stood by, by another he is driven off by the sign of the Cross, while he sat for his private necessity: nor did either move from the place, from the beginning of Matins to the end. But at length the opportune probity of the Brother conquered the wicked importunity of the demon. For rising, and the sign of the Cross being made, he leaped out through the door, which seemed to be occupied by the demon; and finding no one resisting, he thence recognized, that such an illusion could harm neither him nor anyone. And he remained free from this false fear, who seizing the freedom of the Holy Spirit, afterward did not depart from it. c

XLI

[86] If these contests were due to the members, what to the head? If these to the subjects, what to the Master? Certainly greater. Greater indeed, as to him, who had brought greater damage to the enemy himself, and still foresaw the very greatest to be brought upon him in the future. Whence when the Man of God had passed a certain whole night sleepless in praying, standing before the altar of the poor oratory, which at the beginning of his conversion he had undertaken in the Premonstratensian place; Satan stood behind him, in the manner of a horrible bear, bearing a terrible aspect with teeth and claws. [a demon appearing to Norbert in the likeness of a bear, is magnanimously repelled,] And when the man turned himself, and wished to proceed, that he might recreate his weak limbs with a little sleep; suddenly seeing the beast standing by, he was terrified: but as quickly returned to himself, and considering the door of the oratory closed, and recollecting that he had not before heard the sound of anyone entering, he recognized it to be the snares of his persecutor. And praying a little, his strength being resumed; What, he said, do you await, bloody beast? Your claws are empty, and your horrible teeth wind, and your shaggy skin smoke, and a vapor passing emptily, and like a shadow, which vanishes when the Sun withdraws. You, the seal of the likeness of God, when you were light, by pride deserved darkness. Withdraw now, I command you: because there is no agreement of Christ with Belial; no fellowship of light with darkness; no part of the faithful with the infidel. Withdraw hastily: you know, that you can harm no one, unless permitted; and then those, who by their sins requiring it have been subject to your power. And these things being said that liar, not able to bear the words of truth, disappeared.

XLII

[87] Now then the time had come, in which on a day determined through go-betweens, the place also being appointed, Count Theobald, of whom mention was made above, ought to meet his future wife and her father, and the multitude of his relatives: and Father Norbert being invited, who had given the counsel of this conjunction, he led him with him to that same place. Where when they had arrived, they did not find her: for she had remained on the way held by a grievous infirmity. About which matter when the Count, and all who were with him, wondered, suspecting it to be the cause of some repentance and deception; counsel being taken, Father Norbert was asked with great prayers, that he should proceed to meet her, and report back, whether the occasion of this delay was true. The man acquiesced in the prayers of those entreating, reckoning it to be his own reproach, if he did not bring to the end the care, which he had undertaken to bear concerning that matrimony. About to depart into Germany he takes care that the poor be fed at Prémontré. And eight marks of silver being received, he sent them to his Brothers at Prémontré, who in his absence had undertaken to feed five hundred poor; because it was a time of famine, and they bought food for themselves and for the poor. And because for this he had been angry with them, he commanded, that in his name they should add still one hundred and twenty poor: so that one hundred of them should have a full refreshment of common food, but thirteen in the hospital house should be recreated with bread and meat and wine, but seven should be with the Canons in the refectory. For the offense which he had brought upon God and the Brothers, because the humanity and work of mercy had displeased him, which in the faith of Jesus Christ they had undertaken to bear toward the poor, he believed thus to be remitted and expiated: for he did not hope, to return to them again to dwell with them; nor did he wish to leave any mark of offense upon those, whom he knew to be gathered together in the love of God, and of himself and of all the faithful; following in this the example of the true Master, who having loved his own, loved them to the end. John 13. 1.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

to the Brothers constituted there by him he handed over to be governed and disposed by perpetual right a hospital house, founded by Archbishop Adalbert: because he had found it so dissipated and almost annihilated, that those who in it were to receive their daily stipend, The institutions of St. Norbert in aid of the poor. indecently and miserably begged. But worthy is the same Saint's other ordinance left concerning the poor of Prémontré, which let it here be read entire, as it is related by Pagi fol. 304. Let a tithe be given to God, for the hospital, of all the possession and offering of the Brothers, for the uses of the poor. Yet thus, if the sum of silver be worth ten shillings, or up to ten shillings has been offered, from these let eighteen poor be clothed each single year: namely through winter on the feast of all Saints one, on the Nativity of the Lord one, on the Circumcision of the Lord one; likewise on the Epiphany of the Lord, on the Purification of St. Mary, on the Annunciation of St. Mary, on the Burial of the Lord, on the Resurrection of the Lord, with new garments; namely let him be clothed with shirts, breeches, hose, socks, undershoes, tunic, cappa with mantle or skins: but through summer, namely on the Ascension of the Lord, through the seven days of Pentecost, on the passion of the Apostles Peter and Paul, on the Assumption of St. Mary, with a new cloak or cappa, shirt, breeches, socks, undershoes, on the single feasts let one be clothed. But from the day on which a poor man receives a garment up to the eighth day, if he wishes to remain, let refreshment of body be exhibited to him there, let the rest be expended for the uses of the poor coming or passing through. But on the Lord's Supper let each one of the Priests or Levites, after the washing of the feet of the beggars, by the counsel of the Provost, charitably bestow on them one of his own garments, either cappa, or skins, or tunic, or hose: who, after the charity received, should by no means as above remain for seven days, but after refreshment immediately withdraw.

CHAPTER XV.

The Archbishopric of Magdeburg entered, a Monastery of the Order constituted in it.

[88] Thence he proceeded to that for which he was sent: and coming to Speyer, he found the Saxons and Clerics of the city of Magdeburg for the most part, for electing an Archbishop, gathered before King Lothair. Who hearing that this man had come, whom through the various nations of the earth the people acclaimed a holy man; called him, both to make a sermon, in which he was wont to be gladly heard, and to hear counsel about certain affairs, which the necessity of certain of those who had come together demanded. At Speyer he is elected into Archbishop of Magdeburg: And first indeed the cause of the people of Magdeburg, who had been bereaved of a Father, was treated. There was there a certain a Cardinal, who had newly come from the Roman See, and an innumerable multitude of other Princes: and in the election three of them were named by counsel, of whom one was Father Norbert, but with him not knowing it. But it came to pass when they hesitated, and panted toward the better of the three; secretly from the opposite side Albero Primicerius of the Church of Metz signaled to them with his finger, he who afterward was Archbishop of the Church of Trier b, that they should take the Man of God Norbert. Who immediately their hands being stretched out seize him, with redoubled voices crying out: This one we elect for Father, this one we approve as our Pastor c.

[89] The weak man could not defend himself; it was not allowed to him to think, nor by thinking to ordain anything about himself; but as quickly as he was seized, he was praised by the d King, and approved by all the bystanders, by the very Legate of the Roman Church too confirmed. The man is led off, led off to that See, bearing with him a heavy burden aggravated; he is led off to a place which he did not know: he is dragged, I say, to the people of a depraved and perverse nation, namely among the e Slavs and Saxons, which both peoples draw their name from the thing; the one, the S being removed, by the point of nails (clavi) insinuating the prick of infidelity; the other, attesting the weight of rocks (saxa) and the blindness and fierceness of a stony heart: and he who now for the sevenfold service, which Laban had exhibited, awaited Rachel; or Mary's, as being weak in body, the best part which he himself had chosen; found the work of Martha and the labor of Leah; because there is no wisdom, no prudence, no counsel against the Lord. Luke 10. 42 Therefore he too, who had neglected the unbelieving people of the Pagans, to whom at the beginning of his conversion he had disposed to go, that he might recall any from the error of infidelity; now bearing with him authority and office, whence he thought to escape the divine disposition, thence is compelled manifestly to undergo obedience.

XLIII

[90] There was therefore at his entrance, as is the custom of peoples, an innumerable concourse; and all of greater and lesser age congratulated: the greater, because they had elected a famous person of high name; the lesser, because they had deserved to receive this one, who would have compassion on their infirmities. But seeing from afar that city, with naked feet and in humble fashion he enters to which he was being led, he walked with naked feet: with naked feet with procession in the sanctuary, with naked feet he is led in the palace; but as a poor man, clothed with a poor cloak, with others entering, he is repelled unrecognized by the doorkeeper. For the doorkeeper said to him: Other poor men have long since been admitted; it is not fitting that you should obtrude yourself importunately, crowding the multitude of these Princes. But those who followed cried out saying these things: Wretch, what do you do? Let be, wretch: what is it that you have done? Do you not know, that this is our Bishop and your Lord? But that one as quickly fled hiding behind, Father Norbert recalling him, and smiling saying; Do not fear, and do not flee, my brother; for you know me better, and behold me with a clearer eye, than those who compel me to these lofty palaces, to which I ought not, who appear so poor and small, to be raised.

XLIV

[91] Consecrated therefore and made Bishop, and raised to the Episcopal chair, not unmindful of that Apostolic precept, who commanded the Bishop to be a steward of his house; the provosts of the house being called together, and all the ministerials, he sought out what were the revenues of the Episcopal table, and where: and who those who ought to preside over each. 1 Tim. 3. 4 And when all had been numbered, and committed to writings, and the expenses which were due from them; there were scarcely found out of all those which could suffice for four months of the year. The Priest of God wondering beyond measure, asked diligently, finding the revenues diminished, whether the Church had been anciently endowed with a larger possession of estates; or whether by some, before existing in the government, the things which were of its right, by guarding them less cautiously, had been dispersed. The truth being known, that the Church was noble, and founded and exalted by Royal power, and endowed and dilated by liberality; Where are these, he said? or by what reason from it and from you to whom they belonged, are they alienated? They say: Certain of your predecessors, too much indulging their carnality, granted to their carnal brothers, and to certain of their relatives and kinsmen one estate, lent another. Others likewise succeeding gave certain things in fief: but others holding themselves more remissly, and oppressed by the powerful, not prevailing to defend the things which were of the Church's right, lost certain things; and so all the things, which were wont to serve this honor and honesty, were diminished, and utterly reduced to nothing.

[92] That Man hearing this, being mindful that cursed is he who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and his heart departs from the Lord; the strength being collected in him, and through Him, by whom he did not doubt he had been called to administer this office, undaunted, the radiance of power being taken up, he sends a legation everywhere; commanding, that whoever held unjustly the possessions of the Church, over which by God's authorship he presided, he shows himself a vindicator of the patrimony of Christ should by no means dare further to lay hands on them, unless they had first shown, that it was their hereditary right, and from ancient paternal possession. Jer. 17. 5 Those robbers and sacrilegious men hearing this, were much indignant, that an unarmed and poor man, who was introduced by an ass carrying him, should dare to bring so powerful and so hasty a precept; which they reckoned as nothing, thinking to lose nothing through him of the things which they had possessed by violence. But he with the spiritual sword, with which he was girded, pursues them: he attacks them sitting in their quiet, strikes, casts down, and binds the cast down with the chain of anathema. And those considering this persecution light to the Bishop, and to themselves long-lasting and grievous (because authority prescribes, that those who suffer the anathema of one year, after a year are outlaws, and recovers various goods. nor have any response in the Courts) gave up for the most part those things which by usurping they had unjustly snatched from the benefices of the Church; but unwilling, and on this account secretly ministered the fuel of enmities and hatred against the Bishop, however and wherever they could.

[93] But he who had taken up the way of justice and the course of the right path before the exaltation of the Bishopric, remained immovable from them; preaching the word, and announcing the kingdom of God, and making peace in his borders; exalting the houses of the Religious, and where they were not building new ones; embracing and ordaining the Religious; bringing assiduous persecution to the undisciplined and irreligious, unless they repented. he takes care that celibacy be kept by the Priests. To the Deans and Priests, and those who had to govern the people, and all promoted to sacred Orders he said that chastity was to be kept in every way; compelling them either to keep it, or if they were made public, to leave all Ecclesiastical benefices. The beginnings of sorrows, and the occasion of persecutions all these. For they said from day to day, each one confessing his own trouble, which they bore ill; Why did we wish this newcomer, and whose customs we were ignorant of, to reign over us? He is indeed contrary to our works and customs, beyond what we can bear. This complaint among the greater, this among the lesser, the rich, the poor, even was divulged; some being burdened, others fearing the burden, others only acquiescing in others by common rumor. So he who before was elevated with great praises, now with vituperation and reproaches, in words only, with him too not knowing it, is cast down. But yet he profited in work outwardly, He disposing it, who is wont to ordain inwardly all exterior things, before they happen.

XLV

[94] There was before the Episcopal Palace, situated not far off a certain church in honor of the holy Mother of God Mary, in which were twenty secular Canons, The Church of St. Mary under a Provost anciently constituted. This therefore when the Priest of God had foreseen to be necessary to him, that there his Brothers being placed, he might sometimes from the tumult, which was due to the imposed office, refresh his spirit a little, he asked many times both from the King, and from the Canons of the greater church, and the Canons of the same church, that elsewhere from him to others under an equal or better condition revenues being received, they would grant that one free to him. after a long refusal he obtains it Who all with one voice contradicted; asserting, that the church

of so great a name ought not to be changed, nor the dignity to which it was subject to be diminished to the Royal power: but neither to impose a people of another order and custom, which would be ignorant of the royal rights, and of the due subjection and obedience according to their custom. This repulse he suffered from all these for some years: but at length he conquered, humbly persevering in his petition: he conquered indeed by the reason, by which he pressed them; he conquered also by the constancy, by which they knew that he never wished from good beginnings up to the end to desist. Those Clerics being removed, and all f being relocated each to his own wish, the Brothers of his Order, and he makes a monastery of his Order. as he had long desired, he placed in the same church; where both with him living according to the established Order, and after his departure forever, he ordained the service of God to be held.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

CHAPTER XVI.

Persecutions tolerated. The first Abbots ordained.

XLVI

[95] The number of the Brothers grew, and they were multiplied in Saxony, He suffers hatred on account of the dilation of the Order where Religion had grown cool; and in Slavonia, where it was not, rooted with fruitful germ they flourished, and were multiplied like the Hebrews. The Saxons roared, the people of Magdeburg roared; and hatred and envy against the man of God growing strong, he having hope and confidence in God, did not cease to dilate both that and the Congregations of other customs. For this cause the wolves raged against the lamb, the sheep against the shepherd; the wolf to the sheep in gentleness, communicating his fierceness; the sheep to the wolf in fierceness, communicating its gentleness; that consenting on both sides, they might exercise cruel ferocity in the slaying of the shepherd. You might see a wonderful kind of persecution. Those who stood at his side, secretly pierced his sides: friends made nearly enemies, from afar from the opposite side threw darts: the nearest carried arrows in the quiver, to be cast in their own time and place; the counselors carried sharp swords under their tongue, everywhere placing snares in secret, to kill the innocent. They were made corrupt and abominable against him: with their tongues they acted deceitfully, the poison of asps under their lips. There they trembled where there was no fear. They feared to lose the kingdom through him, who labored that they might be able to reign without end. They feared to become poor; but they acted perversely, wishing to extinguish him, by whom they ought and could, if they wished, be enriched. Perhaps it wearies the Hearer, so often to hear blasphemies, and the mark of no blasphemy to be brought forth by the writer. Let the world therefore hear, and judge: let the old hear, and the young discern, and learn, and narrate to their successors, and teach, whether it was done in ancient days, as it was done in those days.

[96] For now the day had come, that day, I say, most holy and most celebrated of the Lord's Supper, On the Lord's Supper hearing Confessions; on which the authority of the holy Fathers decreed penitents to be reconciled to God, and on which that innocent Lamb, for reconciling the enmities between God and man, was seized, and led to be immolated. And behold at the door of that place, in which the Priest of God received the Confessions of penitents, there stood a certain man clothed with a cloak, in the likeness of a penitent; earnestly asking the doorkeeper, that it might be lawful for him to enter to the Bishop to confess. This when the doorkeeper had notified to the man of God, Do not, he said, admit him. And when that man by the command of his Lord said a little that he must wait, that man more and more insisted that he be introduced. So he persevered knocking, he recognizes the secrets of an assassin nor was he admitted, until the other multitude withdrew which had come together to confess; and then last to him the opportunity of entering was given. Whom when the Man of God had diligently inspected from afar; Do not, he said, come nearer here, but stand, and see that you move not a foot. And the servants of the Palace being called who were present outside, he commanded them, that they should strip the young man standing by, of the cloak, in which he was wrapped. But he being stripped there appeared a sharp dagger, which he held bound to his side, whose length was almost a foot and a half; who with the same, the Bishop ordering, with all who were present looking on, was led before him. sent by his adversaries: And when it was asked of him, why he had come thus armed; trembling and astonished, as being conscious of unspeakable and nefarious cruelty, fearing death, he fell at his feet; and confessed that he had been sent to kill him. And those being named by whom he had been hired, and by whose instigation and counsel he had come to perpetrate so execrable a crime; the others who were present, and who flowed together to this spectacle of a new kind, wondered beyond measure: because of this betrayal there were found guilty those, who about greater affairs and more secret counsels with him had been wont to deal.

[97] But the just Man, as he was of cheerful face and serene countenance, looking at them; Why do you wonder, he said, if the ancient enemy recognized his vessel, and strives to exercise his work in his members, which on this most sacred night in our holy Head Jesus Christ he did not fear to work? O how happy would he be who in some hour of this day, not by enemies, he burns with the desire of suffering and dying. but even by friends, as these are whom you have heard recited, would be betrayed and die! This is, I say, the day, on which mercy is rendered to the despairing, pardon to sinners, life to the dead: on this, because you prohibited this death, you prolonged my grief, and brought labor, but also deferred my rest. These were and are friends, nor on this account do they deserve to be enemies: for it befits us to imitate our Head and beginning Jesus Christ. Matt. 5. 44 For He says; Do good to those who hate you: and pray for those persecuting and calumniating you: and elsewhere; Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do. Luke 23. 34 Nevertheless that betrayer is shut up in custody, not that he be punished, but that the counsel of his supporters be detected; that in them the ignominy of so great a crime might punish, what the grief of their heart with some repentance or sickness did not feel. What then? Could the man of God know, what that one, who came for the cause of Confession and penance, bore, unless superabundant grace had taught him? By the unarmed man the conquered fail, who armed themselves with shameful iniquity and evident injustice.

XLVII

[98] The emulous iniquity did not cease in secret, in open simulating gentle equity, and so much the more grievously and wickedly, the more it was done by domestics and intimates. Familiarity it must truly be called: because when at a certain time of night, thus too he avoids the snares of the Clerics: to celebrate with his Clerics the solemnities of Matins, in his usual manner he had risen; there had come a certain Cleric of the domestics, and behind at the door had placed himself in ambush, full of iniquity and cruel malice; as armed with suitable arms, with which the innocent man cautiously and in guile he could strike and kill. And the Chaplains having gone out who preceded, as is the custom in the land (for the Chaplains precede their Lords) that man leaping from the ambush, thinking the Bishop the last, struck one of the Clerics, the middle of his garment being slashed. And when that one cried out and said; Who is it who hurts me? he, by the sound of the voice, recognizing it was not the one he sought, I thought, he said, this was the last, whom I had disposed to deliver to death. For the Bishop had preceded mingled among the others, fearing the same event, as if foreknowing of future things. But that one with hasty course was turned to flight: and when others pursued to seize him, Let, said the Man of God, him flee, nor render evil for evil; for he did as much as he could, and as much as God permitted him: for my hour has not yet come. But those who sent him, will not sleep, nor rest; until they be satiated with their reproaches, and either deliver me to death, or, if it be a divine work which is done concerning me, render it manifestly proved.

XLVIII

[99] The little flock of the Premonstratensian Church bereaved of so great a Father, yet by the example of Him who said, I will not leave you orphans, I go and come to you, for two years patiently waited. John 14. 18 With some of them with certain seculars saying; Recognizing that the Premonstratensians wavered through his absence, We shall by no means be able to subsist, because the shepherd departing, the sheep are wont to go into dispersion; some wishing no Master but him, others despairing of him, wished to elect another: and contending in this manner, and pretending a cause of truth and reason in part similar, and having no solace of faithful exhortation; they could rather still tenderly rooted totter, than think any stability about themselves. Which when it was related to the Man of God, fearing lest that wither, which by God through him had been planted, if it were not yet suffused with the dew of divine counsel; certain of the priors and of greater and sounder counsel Brothers being called to him, he sought out from them, what needed to be done; searching individually about their wills, that in all things in the definition of his work he might be rendered more sure. after mature deliberation, And when he had understood that some wished to dwell with him, others by his counsel to live elsewhere, others wished to keep the vow of proposed poverty, but very many wished under a certain Master and discipline to observe the same tenor of poverty, he sent them back to their place, he exhorts to peace: a few being retained with him; persuading again and again the norm of peace and unanimity, that, when by him the faculty of electing a Father had been granted to them, the concord of Christ Jesus, and the love which He taught, might be found in them. They withdrew: and the good Father not unmindful of the sons whom he had begotten in Christ, lest they should long remain without a pedagogue, not long after sent faithful messengers to them

who should both announce the faculty of electing, he permits that they elect another in his place; and indicate his will about the election. In this, how and what was done in the election, there is no need to delay; because those who had been well taught by their Master, did not need to be fully taught by the Legates sent.

[100] The election therefore being approved by the sons, as the assent had been given by the Father, those who had been sent returned to him, announcing that the precept of his will had been fulfilled. He too had the Elect a with him, but yet commanded the matter to be dissembled for some days, nor was it indicated to that Elect: which being done he conceals the elect one, that the curiosity of certain ones who were with him might be considered, who awaited this answer curiously. For this was his custom, that when the events of things of this kind were to be treated, changed, or confirmed, and of others which by manifold action supervened; he exhausted the whole spirit of each one who were around him, about the individual affairs; that he might make no abrupt definition in causes, unless first, as a man could, he had sought out the will of God, and drawn from the bystanders the better sense. The counsel was for a time concealed; yet that Elect was not ignorant, what had been done about him, so that he considered the matter in silence taught by divine revelation. For he asserted, that in the morning on that day, on which about him the election was made, but Hugh learns the matter divinely, he had stood through a vision before the Son of God Jesus Christ, with his Father and Master Norbert; and Jesus extending His right hand, received that Brother elected by the other Brothers from the hand of the Man of God, saying; This one committed to me by Thee, Lord, I represent to Thy most holy Majesty.

[101] By this without doubt he could know, what else the divine mercy was disposing about him. What more? and he is constituted Abbot: The day came, on which it pleased the man of God to perfect what he had begun: and the Brothers being called together whom he had with him, he indicated his counsel to them. And the elect being called, You, he said, will succeed me by the election of your Brothers in the house of our poverty. And when he answered: To you and especially to the Father of all I ought to obey: I will go and consider the processes and progresses of the mercy of God: in which if I can proceed and profit, thanks to Him; but if not, to you, whom after God I chose as Father and guardian of my soul, may it be permitted me to return without offense. Go, he said; for the hand of the Lord up to the end will be with you. This blessing being received he withdrew, and others as Abbots elsewhere: two companions being joined to him, of whom the Man of God had commanded, that b one in the Church of Antwerp as Father, c the other likewise in that of Floreffe he should place. And so it was done. He was placed and consecrated under the name of Father in the Premonstratensian Church; and those two in the two other aforesaid. But also two others had already been consecrated in two other Churches, d that of Blessed Martin of Laon, and that of Viviers. These five, and a sixth, whom to the place which is called e Bonne-Espérance, immediately after his entrance, the Abbot of Prémontré had set forth, seeing the imminent dissolution of the Order in very many places, and fearing a greater to come, came together on an appointed day in a determined place; the first chapter is celebrated. and cutting back whatever at present in their houses seemed to be superfluous; thereafter, after the likeness and example of the Cistercians, they confirmed that they would return together yearly f, to correct the sinister things of their Order. Which when it had been divulged in other places; if in the first year they were six, in the second they were nine, in the third twelve, in the fourth eighteen. And thence they were multiplied everywhere on earth, as their voices and acts and works up to the present day attest.

ANNOTATIONS G. H.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Saint obtains the privileges of his Church to be confirmed by Innocent II. In a sedition he keeps constancy: he is miraculously preserved from death.

XLIX

[102] Then Pope a Honorius of blessed memory being called to his predestined eternity, and Innocent being substituted to the Holy Roman See by canonical election, when he could not obtain the See, on account of the intrusion of Peter Leonis, and the sedition of his offspring, going out thence he betook himself into France, where, as was fitting, he was honorably received. And a Council being convoked b at Reims, there came together from everywhere Bishops of various nations: By Innocent in the Council of Reims. Father Norbert too came, and there they excommunicated that intruder Peter; and the election of Innocent being approved, they delivered the same Peter Leonis to the roaring lion to be devoured, unless he repented. In this Treatise to treat of the Roman Pontiffs, will seem to someone to be superfluous; but in no other way can certain things be discoursed in order, which about the soldier of Christ ought not to be passed over, which by him magnificently and praiseworthily done are recognized in modern times. For he had brought with him the most ancient privileges of his Church, and almost consumed by worms, which all he had renewed and corrected with Roman security. Adding those which he had received from the hands of those, who had unjustly and violently snatched them, as was noted above. He added moreover another privilege secretly, that, when opportunity should be given, supported by Roman authority, After the old being confirmed and new Privileges obtained, he might propagate the Order of his Religion in the Episcopal church. The Council finished, when he returned to his own See, and now it had been in part divulged what he had done; namely how with the spiritual sword and the walls and bulwarks of castles he had armed himself against them; they roared the more, saying to one another; Our kingdom will not stand, and our glory is nothing; but also the honor of all of us and the dignity of our predecessors will be destroyed, returned to his See, the Saint incurs the hatred of the citizens, unless as quickly as possible we remove him from us, and this his subtle power be taken from our land: and thence they sought opportunity to do it cautiously, according to what they were inordinately and foolishly contriving.

[103] But when it pleased Him who had chosen him and taken him into the work of His ministry, that He should seek the constancy of the Man; who, as was set forth, had proved faith and patience; He did not long delay, but brought occasion and time, that He might both satiate the fury of those hungering for blood, and purge His recruit with the fire of evident tribulation. But it had happened at the same time a certain misfortune in the c greater church; which secretly had been revealed to the Man of God. on the occasion of the Cathedral Church. And when he had indicated this to the elders of the church, and protested, that for such a matter the Church ought to be expiated, according to the authority of the Canons; they were unwilling to acquiesce in him, saying, that that church ought not to be consecrated anew, which it was established had been consecrated by the authority of many Kings and Pontiffs. This they prohibited: but he on the contrary asserted, that he would never wish to celebrate the divine mysteries in it, unless they would suffer the infestation of demons, by which it had been ensnared, to be driven from it. In this manner they contended; but that Man who did not fear their craftiness, while yet God was in the cause, which he knowing to be polluted made known to all the people the event of the matter d on the pulpit: showing also that he was prohibited from doing what was authentic, and what in events of this kind the custom of the holy Fathers had sanctioned.

[104] These things he said, and on the following night two Bishops being taken, whom he then had with him, and the Provost of the same church, who in this favored him, and very many of his Brothers Clerics, he entered the church; and clothed with sacred vestments, and with consecrated water, that office, as the aforesaid business required, with sincere devotion they completed. by night he had expiated it, These were consecrating the place for consecrating the e Lord's Body and Blood with divine blessing, as it must be done, from the due office; but the aforewritten adversaries execrating this deed, hastened to fill their hands with the blood of the innocent Priest. These watch, to gather the blood of the lamb; those watch, to shed the blood of the innocent. For immediately as the Office was performed, all who were present still being in sacred vestments, an excessive clamor, and a great tumult of the people was heard outside. For the whole city had been moved, with fury not small and unspeakable; because a cruel and stupendous voice had been made to them by certain adversaries, namely, a popular tumult having arisen. that the Bishop had broken the altars, unlocked the shrine, dissolved the biers and reliquaries, and laid them up for himself; and with all these, under the darkness of the same night, with

all the treasure too of the church he had disposed to flee. Hearing this those who were with the Man of God, were terrified, some more, some less. But he undaunted wished to go out to them, that he might ask what it was. Furthermore the others in every way prohibited it, saying, that this plebeian tumult could not easily at such an hour be calmed by anyone: and they compelled him, to ascend a certain f fortress, which had been built there anciently by the Emperor Otto, in place of a certain tower of the church, which he had begun to build, but death preventing did not finish.

[105] he is besieged in a certain fortification, There the man reclined himself, and those who were with him, still clothed in sacred vestments, awaiting rather a most base death of the body than life. The voices grew strong of those insulting and leaping up g, redoubling, Theid-ut, Theid-ut, that is, Go out, Go out. But those in the tower above on the contrary in the solemnities of Matins singing praises to God, with hymns and canticles of exultation resounded praises to God in honor of the excellent preacher Paul with immense voices: but those multiplying with inordinate clamors the voices of insult, proclaimed the Priest of God guilty of death. It was indeed the next night, after the day on which is made the solemnity of the blessed Peter and Paul in their martyrdom; and as on the former night for the one, that is blessed Peter, the Church celebrates; so on the following for the other, that is Paul, they celebrated the solemnities, as is wont to be the custom of the Church. They sang, who had been besieged, of him whom his history narrates to have been besieged; and they resume strength from the fear of martyrdom, when there resounds in their ears the deposit of blessed Paul, which he confirms reserved for himself in glory: for he says; I know whom I have believed, and I am certain, that He is powerful to keep my deposit unto that day, the just judge. 2 Tim. 1. 12 With this confidence certain of them standing did not tremble; but others still adhering closely to the world and their carnality, and groaning with no small wailing, said; Alas, alas! why have we followed this man hither, to die with him in our sins? Whom the holy Man, as he could, exhorting with mellifluous consolation said: he exhorts his own to constancy; Do not, most dear Brothers, do not be terrified: for it is of God what is done by us; it is of God what is done; it is of God's permission, when by His enemies some good work of His is assailed. These things he sometimes said, but meanwhile for them, lest by failing they should despair, he prayed more attentively; by their failing, his affection of praying grew; and, as he himself afterward asserted, he did not so much fear death, as he feared lest by despairing they should fail.

[106] The adverse party was gathering through the whole night; the holy Priest and the society gathered with him multiplied the prayers of supplications, in the article of such necessity. But morning being made, when at the highest dawn the light had begun to shine; while some press the assault of the tower, others with arrows, others with darts assail the Bishop and his Clerics; certain ones, who were said to have sworn his death, and to those breaking in by force offering himself of his own accord, as more eager appetents of that cruel slaying, in whatever way breaking in, boldly got up to the upper parts of the tower. Whom when the man saw rush with drawn swords, lest they should rage to the death of the others, going forward to meet them, following the example of his Master, One man, he said, you seek; behold me. Spare these, who have deserved no sentence of death. But those seeing him, as he was still clothed with the Episcopal and Sacerdotal purple vestment, were terrified; and drawing back a little; in a moment God, by whose nod all things are disposed, the constancy of His Martyr being declared, as far as was in him, with such great change pricked the minds of those very persecutors, he placates the first ones, kindly forgives his enemies: that falling at his feet, they prayed and received pardon for so great a boldness; and from adversaries came forth as defenders. But others hastily pursuing them, found one of his Chamberlains, who faithfully clung to him, defending a certain entrance. And now thinking the Bishop had been beheaded by those preceding, that same Chamberlain, because he loved his Lord, holding in hatred, they struck with the sword; and cutting off his neck even up to the throat, half-alive, yet thinking him to be dead, they left him. his Chamberlain being grievously wounded by others. Which seeing the Man of God, all being unwilling leaped into the midst of the crowd, and giving his enemies the opportunity over himself, offered himself to death: choosing rather to die, than that anyone else should die with him surviving.

[107] But that same one who had struck his servant beholding him, he himself by a miracle, remains unharmed: full of diabolical fury and iniquity, still holding the bloody sword unsheathed, extending his hand against the Bishop, with bold presumption brought a great blow upon him over the shoulders. But the sword rebounded, as if it were struck upon an adamantine stone; and with the fresh blood, with which it was dipped, dipped the fringes of the Episcopal miter, which he bore on his head: which as long as the man lived, the miter sprinkled with the same blood appeared. But certain ones seeing, who stood by, awaiting from the opposite side the outcome of the matter, those, who awaited more the man's blood than the man; seeing, I say, those that he did not die, because by some he was spared, by some indeed struck he was not hurt; they ran, and the Relics of the Saints swiftly bringing, placed them in the midst; [nor does he yield to those persuading that he should lead his own away from the church;] saying, that it was a great impropriety, that thus indecently the Pastor should be assailed by the sheep. These things they pretended, simulating false humanity: for they too compelled him placed in this crisis, to remove his Brothers from the church of Blessed Mary, who had been placed in it, as was said above. But he refused, affirming that this deed, as long as he lived, would never be weakened by them; which they grieved was confirmed by Royal power and Roman authority.

[108] While these things were being done, the tumult being calmed by the Count, the Count of the same city came from the way; and as if ignorant of this event, ran among the midst of those tumultuating; and dividing them from one another, named a determined day for them, on which all having a just complaint against the Bishop should come, to execute and receive justice. They withdrew therefore at the command of the Judge. But the Priest of God entered the same church, for which the whole commotion had been made, about to celebrate Mass, and to render immense thanks to his God. And when he had approached the altar, the bystanders being summoned; Behold, he said, all things are whole, alone in it he says Mass, safe and sound, which had been denounced as broken and carried off. He celebrated therefore Mass in the same place, but also read the Epistle and Gospel himself: for all his ministers had withdrawn affected with weariness and fear; so that it could truly be said of him, as of our supreme Head Jesus Christ, He being left all fled. But the Mass being finished, he came to the palace, bearing a purple face in a wonderful and ineffable manner, as one well filled with the chalice of his Lord; so that he could say with the Prophet: I will take the chalice of salvation, and I will invoke the name of the Lord. Matt. 26. 56, Ps. 115. 13 and departs joyful. For this color he had kept in the very danger of death; and this those attested who had been with him, that no one saw him grow pale even a little: but he on the contrary asserted the constancy of the Martyrs to be light, and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. So the Lord snatched him, fulfilling the promises of Him who said; Many are the tribulations of the just, and from all these the Lord freed them; seeking the faith of His soldier, but in no way thirsting for blood. h

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Another conspiracy dispersed. The Roman journey. Illness and death.

[109] It is wont to be the custom of the envious, that when by those, whom they envy, on some occasion they have been a little stirred up, they do not at once bring forth all that they bear ill, and what grieves in their hearts; but after they have withdrawn from them, swelling with sharper grief, whatever to the reproach of those they could have said or done, more embittered, the opportunity of a greater vengeance being given, they reserve for the future. So the aforewritten adversaries, to whom the equity was hateful, which the unconquered Pontiff preached to them; their perverse conventicles being again called together, each one brought forth his grief; saying that they were deluded, On account of a new conspiracy and by magic art and the gloom of darkness their senses hooked, who had left this man alive; who did not yield to them, nor in any way feared to change their rite and honor, and the due dignity of the city. Truly deluded a and stupid, nor is it a wonder, because deceitful and stupendous things indeed they had come together to treat. For also this was firmly there decreed by them, to be done by drunken men, that when on the agreed day they ought to come together, each should drink a penny's-worth b of wine or c of mead; that if anything contrary to their will should happen in the discussions of the complaints, they might supply by the slaying of their Pastor what they had done less; and so it might be attributed rather to drunkenness than to premeditation. And this was decreed, that whoever did not obey this decree, his house should be subject to be cast down, and all his furniture to be plundered by the judges of all that senate. Which deed when it had been related to the ears of certain Princes of the land, who in some part loved the Man of God, asked to yield to the fury, at first he refuses: because they knew him to be a holy and just Man;

they persuaded him, to yield for a time, by the example of his Master, who hid himself from the face of those persecuting him, as it is written: But Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple. John 8. 59 Which when he refused, and rejoicing awaited the palm of martyrdom; they with manifold persuasions compelled him to go out.

[110] The day came, as it had been foreappointed; and the signal being given, the city began to resound with immense clamors. then he betook himself to the Abbey of St. John, And the man of God asking what it was; it was answered him, that much people gathered, wished to eject the Brothers from the church of Blessed Mary. But he smiling said: It is not so; because the plantation, which the heavenly Father planted, cannot be eradicated. Nevertheless they compelled him to go out: and the mounts being prepared he went out to a certain Abbey of monks in honor of St. John d, which is situated in the suburb of the city upon a certain mountain; where all things being disposed spaciously enough, he passed over to a certain Castle of his which is called e Halle, that there he might rest from such great tumult. But that too he found closed: For his enemies going before, had pre-occupied every fortification. What should the man do, who nowhere found where his foot might rest? what should he do, destitute of human help? He betook himself to a certain church of Regular Canons f, which was there nearby; praying his God for some days, then at Halle to the Regular Canons: that He would deign to direct his way in the good pleasure of His will. But He who said through the Prophet, Cursed is the man, who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and his heart departs from the Lord, seeing the humility and constancy of His recruit, regarded the prayers of his truth; and as He willed, from when He willed, peace was given to affairs. John 17. 5 For as the enemies had come together emulously to slay, so they hastened to come together to make satisfaction. he spurns the money offered by those mitigated: They offered every kind of satisfaction, they offered also manifold money. But he, who had come rather to seek souls for God, than money; lest he should incur the offense of the Lord his God, spurned the moneys, that he might gain their souls, which for this excess lay subject to the danger of perdition. He said finally, that it was his and not their fault: that they sinned, but he wishes satisfaction to be made to the wounded Chamberlain: they harmed themselves, not him: they harmed too rather him, whom wounded and half-alive lying they had left. He sought satisfaction for him, but for himself not at all, by the example of his Head, who said, Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do; and of that Apostle, Rendering to no one evil for evil: about that man, he grieved with inward grief; who had deserved nothing worthy of death, yet condemned to death, and held by a grievous wound lay. Luke 23. 34, Rom. 12. 17

[111] The adversaries therefore seeing, with what grief especially the man of God was distressed, studied to soften him in that wherein they perceived he was burdened. For to that wounded man repairing wholly his house, which they had cast down, for healing the wound, which they had inflicted on him, they conferred forty marks of silver. After these, the gates of the Castle being opened, which at his coming they had before closed, honorably received he entered there with all honor, surrounded by a great company of Nobles, with a multitude also of the common people praising God over the constancy of so great a Pontiff, and asserting him to be worthy of the Pontificate, whom almighty God snatched from the hands of so many persecutors: he is extolled with praises: and in so evident a danger of death, with the integrity of his faith and the safety of his body remained unconquered. So humility conquered, the grace of humility going before, that in him the insignia of Truth shone forth, which says: He who humbles himself, shall be exalted. Luke 18. 14 The praises therefore of so great a Man are not to be kept silent; because glorious is God in His Saints. And when the great deeds of preceding Fathers are narrated, the works of succeeding sons are provoked to imitate these. In the fifth year of his Bishopric these things were done, and three afterward he sat, from day to day giving honor to the ministry committed to him by God, profiting in all religion and honesty; conserving the unity of the holy Church, and persecuting and detesting all its disturbers and schismatics; embracing the good, giving counsel to the desolate, he excels in heroic virtues: sustaining the poor and orphans and widows, cherishing and dilating all the religious, and teaching the form of religion; showing himself, as far as the dignity of his office could suffer, affable to lesser as to greater; not unmindful of the divine largess and grace, daily offering to the Lord his God a conscience of good opinion and intimate sweetness and delight.

LII

[112] There was a most grievous schism and most difficult to pacify in the holy Roman See, about two, as was set forth, Pontiffs, Innocent and Peter Leonis: of whom one, namely Innocent, canonically elected, for destroying the power of Peter Leonis the antipope was Catholic, and approved by all Catholics was received; but the other, that is Peter, had been intruded, but yet had occupied the holy See, not by God nor by the holy Church, but by secular power. Because he too, even if not by nobility, yet by the multitude of his lineage was powerful in the city; and the holy laws, and order, and all the statutes of the Fathers and of the holy Church, and the rule of the Christian faith, blinded by the fervor of his ambition, he destroyed; and the towers and fortifications of the city, casting down some, fortifying others, he prepared for obtaining every secular Principate, and the wish of his cupidity. g On this account, counsel being taken by King Lothair and the Princes of the holy faith, with King Lothair and others lest the knowledge and strength of the faithful Christians in these modern times should perish by that death-bearing plague, they ordained an expedition into Italy; that that sacrilegious man, whom the spiritual sword, with which he had now very often been struck, could not penetrate, the material one at least might pierce. With him and others both Bishops and Archbishops, he leads Pope Innocent to Rome. by the precept and obedience of Innocent the Catholic Pastor, the Pontiff Norbert set out. And the castles and cities being crossed [not], without intolerable offense, with a great company of the army going before and following, they come to Rome, leading with them the venerable Pope Innocent. Where entering with great impetus and a strong hand, they placed that same Pope in the holy see, his enemies and all adversaries being unwilling.

[113] But also the Pontiff placed in the See, and the others who had come with him, consecrated that same King Lothair into Roman Emperor h. For that man was a strenuous leader of war, excellent in arms, provident in counsel, terrible to the enemies of God and the holy Church; thence he returns with Lothair crowned there; a friend of truth, a companion of justice, an enemy of injustice: whose probity was apparent in Sicily, flourished also in Saxony. Who, as long as he lived, the whole Roman Empire, which had been deputed to his guarding, could not totter. But he too loved the Man of God Norbert; because he assiduously used his counsels, which were strong in strenuousness and providence; and because from him he drew the drink of heavenly sweetness, and was daily refreshed with the bread of divine refreshment. Of great weakness was that man in his body, as worn by long and grievous harshness of penance: but the infirmity grew much more, when the labor and grief of traveling, and the occupation of lands was joined to him, and the solicitude of domestic care and the change of various airs, and the assiduity of restlessness. But all things, which there or elsewhere were done by him, it is not possible for anyone alone to narrate; because neither was it possible for anyone alone to know or learn all things. and falling ill on the way Yet it is known, that returning from Italy into his city of Magdeburg, not long after he was held by a grievous sickness; and for some time, that is for the space of four months, he labored in it. And the Bishopric being wisely and faithfully administered for eight years, full of the Holy Spirit, with all integrity of sense, a blessing being given to the bystanders, he dies most holily in the year 1134 on June 6. he rested with a blessed end. For he could not, as Augustine says, die badly, who had lived well. It was the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and thirty-four, the Wednesday of Pentecost, the eighth of the Ides of June, Pope Innocent reigning in the fifth year, Lothair in the ninth.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

125 and 126 writing about him. Baronius at the year 1106 num. 26 thinks all that is to be referred to this, that since holy men often foreknew great future persecutions of the Church, they thought by the very magnitude of things that the times of Antichrist were at hand.

CHAPTER XIX.

The burial of the body. A threefold apparition. Epilogue.

LIII

[114] Father Norbert of blessed and worthy memory therefore being dead, and his spirit called to the eternity of the highest felicity, and his holy lifeless body being left, The body, while there is contention about the place of burial, no small contention arose, between the greater Church and the Church of Blessed Mary, about the place of his burial. For some wished, and said it was worthy and just, that, because he had been the Head of the churches of the same city, they should pay his bones the honor of the capital Church; and there he should await the coming of the supreme Judge, where was his title immovable and without end, if without end it had befallen him to live in the flesh. But also the other party, namely the Brothers of St. Mary, asserted that he was of their right; because reconciled to their Creator through him, they elected him Father; and the Emperor's answer is awaited, and through him rendered themselves and their devotion to the Lord their God, from whom they had been turned away: especially since the man still living had commanded, and up to the end the devotion of his will had shown that it asked this, that among his Brothers and sons, whom he had begotten to God, by the word of God, in the time of his poverty, he ought to be buried and to rest. This was the contention; and on both sides an evident response of just and sure reason was set forth. A wonderful thing! They contended to retain the lifeless body of this man; thinking the presence of the dead man profitable to them, whose absence, when he lived, and could profit, they in every way sought. Those at length seeing who were in the middle, who on both sides bore this contention equally, that they were invincible, and each party asserted its own justice better; gave counsel, that it should be sent as quickly as possible to King Lothair; and whatever he should command or judge, this should be held ratified. And so it was done.

[115] [it is carried around through all the churches while the obsequies are celebrated:] But meanwhile the body lay unburied, and so from day to day was carried through each monastery of the city; and in each one the Vigils, and the things which are due to the faithful dead, were diligently celebrated; until on the eighth day those returned who had been sent: and then by the command of the Emperor, to the Brothers in the church of Blessed Mary the body of the holy Man was buried. But this too was wonderful, and not to be kept silent, that since it was an excessive summer, it remains meanwhile free from stench: so that in the same year no hay of the meadows, on account of the excessive drought, was cut; there did not go out from his body through so many days the corruption of any stench a. Whence it is given to understand, how the superabundant grace cleansed him from the corruption of mind, which preserved his body lest it be corrupted, while it had to be handled by hands, and with the exhibition of humanity, in the usual manner, fortified beforehand with the office of obsequies of burial. he is buried in the monastery: Buried therefore before the altar of the holy Cross, in the middle b of the monastery he was for some years: but the good sons, who by the precept of the Truth, as it is written, Honor thy father, that thou mayest be long-lived upon the earth; and from the remembrance of the benignity, which he had exhibited to them, loved to hold him; that he might be commended without oblivion to their memory, transferred him before their eyes into the Choir; where in a c tomb, diligently adorned for the opportunity of the place, he awaits the last day, he is transferred to the Choir. in the hope of sure resurrection and glory. Ex. 20. 11

LIV

[116] The argument of his salvation and hope, ought by no means to be incredible to the estimation of any of the faithful; especially since by certain ones, to whom it was best to be believed, even after his departure he appeared in that figure; and to those asking about his state, The Saint appears at the hour of his death, gave such an answer by divine permission; which true and certain no one diligently attending ought to doubt. For on the same day and hour, on which his soul was separated from his body, a certain Brother saw him in a white garment, and a beautiful figure, holding a branch of olive in his hand. Who when he asked of him, as he was timid, whence he came, or whither he hastened; bearing a branch of olive to Prémontré. he answered, saying: From paradise I am sent, whence also I have brought this flowering branch of olive; and I go swiftly, that in the place of my poverty, that is in the Premonstratensian church, I may transplant it. The Brother awakened from so unusual a vision, began to think within himself, what this signified: and announcing this vision to certain ones at the church d (for it was at a certain court of the same church) they committed to memory the day and hour of the vision, awaiting what they portended, and what works should follow this so manifest apparition. At length the passing of his Master being heard, that same day was found to be that, on which his soul was loosed from the flesh. To another Brother likewise, e who was a Priest, he appeared in his own figure standing before him. to another seen in the likeness of a lily borne to heaven: But immediately the figure of that man was changed into a flower of wonderful whiteness, in the manner of a lily flower; which the Angels receiving carried to the heavens. But the Brother awaking at the highest dawn, ran to his Prior, to receive license, that he might celebrate Mass, and through it commend to God the soul of his pious Father Norbert. And when the Prior asked, what was the sign of this so sudden attestation; he set forth the order of the matter. To whom the Prior commanded, that he should retain that day in memory. And so that day was found to be the day of the burial of the man of God.

[117] There was also a certain other f of those, whom at the beginning of his conversion God had conferred on him, who faithfully and affectionately clung to him, and grieved inwardly about the departure of his Master; yet more, because he had no certitude of his salvation. And when with all insistence of prayers supplicating he asked his God, that he might receive some answer about the mercy, which He had conferred from undue grace on His soldier, and a truly penitent sinner; on a certain night he appeared to him in a most beautiful house, which by the brightness of the sun appeared sufficiently decently irradiated. again he appears glorious to Hugh. Recognizing therefore his Master, of whose vision in any way he desired to enjoy with fervent will; he fell swiftly at his feet, humbly asking of him, that about his state, and about the mercy received from God, he would deign to insinuate something. But he raising him from the ground, and embracing his neck with his arms, said thus to him: My son, you ask a difficult thing: nevertheless because to him, who knocks unceasingly, it is opened; come, let us sit. But there was there a most beautiful seat prepared, upon which when they had sat down, he said: It is said to me, Come my sister, rest: I am in peace and rest; but the dreadful fear of judgment I have not yet lost, in which even the Angels will fear. The Brother filled with this mellifluous and desired answer, fearing lest he should withdraw, because through a vision, as he had asked, he knew he saw this; I ask, he said, most loving Father, that you tell me, if you took it ill, that I did not come to you, when still living you commanded me to come. And he answered: You will come: g and after these things he disappeared. It was true; because that Brother had been about to go to him, but, another business hindering, he did not arrive h.

[118] May almighty God grant, that according to the understanding of the promise he may come to him; The vow of the writer for Hugh, and whom he left as companion and successor, and partaker of the wretched and penal tribulation of this world; may He make him a consort in the joys of eternal felicity, and in the gifts of the blessing received from God, through Him who lives forever, and keeps mercy, and gives it to all obeying Him in good things, and walking in the way of salvation, and justice, and truth. And what more? Is the salvation of so great a man to be despaired of by any of the faithful, who, as was set forth, both lived, and after death, permitted by God, showed these signs of his salvation? But someone will say: I hear what is written; whether this written thing be true I doubt, because it is uncertain to me. Believe if you wish; the Writer adduces the truth of the deed in the truth of Christ. Epilogue on the fidelity of the Author of this Life. Because either he saw the things which he wrote about him, or heard from true relaters, who saw; and were still living, when the aforesaid Work through this writing he committed to memory: except certain things which he learned from him, before he went out from his land and his kindred, and laid down the burden of property. Let the succeeding therefore live, and

let them study to commend to memory the things which were done and narrated by him and by the preceding Brothers of the same Order: because although certain ones do not receive them in all things, and these cannot please all fully, they will not be able to harm the benevolent; even if it happen, not to profit the malevolent and detractors.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

NORBERTINE ANALECTA.

Norbert, Founder of the Premonstratensian Order, and Archbishop of Magdeburg (S.)

BHL Number: 6250

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

CHAPTER I.

The additions of the Brothers of Cappenberg to the Life.

Cap. I

[1] About the common Father, we too the sons of Cappenberg, eagerly add the things known to us; lest in the pursuit of paternal merit, we should seem to be lacking to Your Sanctity as ungrateful. There is with us a little book, containing the Life of our Founder worthy of God, in which it is thus written: In those a days there appeared in the parts of Westphalia a certain excellent radiance of the Church, From the Life of Bl. Godfrey the eulogy of the Saint is added, that memorable herald of God Norbert, a Man indeed of admirable grace, most sweet eloquence, the highest continence, the informer and propagator of the Canonical Religion, the aggregator of the servants of Christ, the founder of not a few monasteries, both in habit and in voice most strenuous, the preacher of true penance, and in all things the executor of that prophetic command, by which it is said; Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the solitude the paths of our God. Luke 3. 4 But also two of his great deeds, which were done in this place, I do not think it worthy to pass over in silence b. At a certain time he predicted in spirit a famine about to come to Westphalia, and to chastise the Brothers themselves a little; a famine both predicted and lifted at Cappenberg: which according to the foreknowledge of the man of God happened so grievous, that the dire calamity of hunger extinguished very many. It happened therefore one day to the Brothers about to go to refreshment, when they distributed to guests and the poor whatever they subtracted from themselves by abstaining, that the nourishment of bread was lacking; so that even whence it might be made, could not be found. And when the Man of God had often intimated what is written; The Lord will not afflict with famine the soul of the just; behold suddenly through His faithful ones the Lord transmitted such great abundance of bread, that the Brothers were both sufficiently refreshed, and offered to those coming with alacrity. Prov. 10. 3 And afterward from that day never were opportune helps lacking to the Brothers.

III

[2] At another time c likewise, when the holy Man wished to send one of the Brothers for the business of the monastery; finding him prostrated by a strong fever, a fever driven away by the command of the Saint, he enjoined on him the cause of obedience in the virtue of Christ, using only the word of command, Go, he said, and return, and now no longer be feverish. Immediately therefore the Brother, his strength recovered, performed as quickly as possible what had been commanded by the holy Father. So the word of the man of God both obtained the business, and suddenly put to flight a long-lasting disease. Likewise there it is written d. It pleased therefore the Holy Spirit, who dwelt in the herald of truth, and who speaking through him in the Lord's field deigned to work wonderful fruits; There the Rule more rigidly observed: it pleased Him, I say, that in the aforesaid monasteries the Brothers dwelling together, that is at Cappenberg, Varlar, Ilbenstadt, should profess the Rule of blessed Augustine, with this tenor indeed, that they should observe the same Rule somewhat more strictly, than had hitherto been usual; namely by abstaining from the eating of fat and meats; by showing also the rigor of penance with a more austere habit. For also the friend of the Bridegroom John was fed not on exquisite, nay on natural and wild foods: and by the Savior Himself before the crowds flocking to the desert, he was praised for the austerity of his clothing. And behold this our Order, the divine clemency pursuing it, is extended far and wide; and, as we truly trust, will be extended much more widely in the future. Whence we ought not to doubt, that with the holy Spirit dictating it was both begun, and by the nod of divine ordination promulgated. For did not the Lord Himself the leader of the journey transfer this vine in His exalted arm from Egypt? Likewise there is added.

[3] e We have nonetheless heard the same asserter of orthodox truth, in the common Chapter pursuing these things which follow. I know, he said, one of the Brothers of our profession, to whom inquiring more studiously about our Rule, not indeed by his own merits, because received from St. Augustine appearing. but by the prayers of his Brothers, blessed Augustine was seen; who both held out to him the golden Rule, brought forth from his right side; and made himself known to him in a luculent speech, saying: He whom you see, I am Augustine, Bishop of Hippo: behold you have the Rule, which I wrote; under which if your Brothers my sons shall war well, they will safely stand before Christ in the terror of the last judgment. And indeed these things humbly, as if about another, he pursued; yet we undoubtedly perceive that it was he himself to whom this was revealed f.

[4] Thus far it was inserted from the little book of our Founder: now, if it pleases, the things which are noted neither in your nor in our little book, as we have truly learned, let us briefly and affectionately set forth. The matter was done at Floreffe. For when there the memorable Father by chance was celebrating the divine office, in performing which indeed he was wont to show himself most devout; celebrating Mass, he saw suddenly, before the very reception, in the middle of the paten a not small drop of the Lord's Blood reddening; and the Brother Rudolph our Sacristan being called, his Deacon then; Do you see, he said, Brother, what I see? I see, he said, Lord; and he began for the magnitude of so great a matter to weep abundantly g. After the declaration of which miracle, from the same occasion taken (as we believe), it was thereafter commanded to us to wash the paten: in the paten he sees a drop of blood. and the observance of this custom h began with us, since hitherto it had been unknown to us.

VII

[5] In the Life of Bl. Servatius we read i, that the same most holy Bishop being dead, a certain silk, with the people looking on and much wondering, brought by Angelic hands, was placed upon his venerable body. That one wishing to see the veil of St. Servatius, Wherefore that same silk in the Church of Maastricht is honored with the highest reverence, and is also kept and locked up with special diligence. When therefore the Man of God had come to Maastricht, he asked this silk to be shown to him. But they all together began to excuse themselves, especially since not even the shrine itself, in which it was laid up, did anyone dare to look into. But what more? At last the petition of the Man of God prevailed. And when in his presence they had opened the sacred repository, suddenly behold that silk (I am about to tell a wonderful thing) raised up by a wonderful and divine impulse flew away; and also circling around the Basilica itself for some time, at length held itself spread out near the upper paneling of the temple, and there as if by a certain rowing of wings was poised resting. Which being seen, with some crying out in astonishment, it raised up in the air others fearing with grief that it would be utterly snatched away from them; the Man of God considering the matter in silence, set about the solemnities of Masses. Which while he performed, behold the silk folding itself together again, slowly let itself down upon the spread arms of the Priest; which he reverently receiving, restored to its place. In this deed therefore, descended upon his arms. I do not doubt that God declared both the glory of merit in the Bishop Servatius, and the faith and virtue of prayer in His servant.

VIII

[6] At the place which is called Bonlandt k, where a monastery also of our Brothers flourishes, a certain powerful invader of others' goods dwelt. Ecclesiastical revenues to the usurper He, among the other evils of his violence, certain revenues of wine,

which properly belonged to the Church of Magdeburg, and pertained especially to the celebration of divine things, by unjust usurpation he had now for some time possessed. Thither therefore when by chance the Archbishop had come, as a Brother of the same place testified to me, for the Church committed to him he did not keep silent; and the robber being summoned, although fearful to many, he freely said: Why, man, do you presume to bring this injury to Blessed Maurice l, that the annual revenues, instituted for the celebration of divine things, by rash invasion you possess? and spend on your own uses? And when that man puffed up answered, saying, that this was not an invasion, but the legitimate possession of his inheritance; the Saint predicts death, the Man of God answered with prophetic spirit: Know, brother, that in this imminent year you will be repelled from this plundering by the judgment of God. He said, and it was done: for in the same year that unhappy man was slain by his enemies.

[7] At another time too, when he was in the expedition of King Lothair, praying for peace at Augsburg, together with the King himself he came to Augsburg of the Vindelici; where the famous sedition, which arose between the people of the same city and the King, he predicted in this order. This thrice-blessed man was wont, about to enter any church for prayer, always at the very threshold of the Basilica to say with bent knees, Peace to this house and to all dwelling in it. When therefore entering the church of the aforesaid city he had completed the prayer, he predicts a sedition, his Deacon being called, from whose mouth we learned these things, what he had known through the Spirit, he revealed to him, saying: I, Brother, prayed peace for this place, wished peace; but yet I found here the repulse of peace. Our cloak m therefore and the other things which are under your hand, I commend more attentively to your diligence; because confusion and a great conflict impend over this place. So it was done. For on the next day, many being prostrated and wounded by the King, the citizens paid the penalties of their rashness; and scarcely at length into the King's grace, after many losses, were they received. At another time likewise, when a demoniac had been brought to him, to dispatch it in few words, he frees a demoniac. he exorcized water mixed with salt: and when proceeding he had begun to sprinkle it, before he reached the man, the malign spirit withdrew. n These are a few out of the many things, which known to us, Epilogue of the Appendix. we have judged it not pious to keep silent, because both from the Law, and from the Gospel, we are admonished not to neglect the honor of our Father. He too, who left us examples of such great perfection, for us with Christ, as we securely trust, will not cease to intervene; that both here we may imitate the footsteps of so great a predecessor; and with the gain of merits, after the end of this misery, we may be received with him in eternal glory. Amen. o

[8] Happy Norbert, the first Father of this Order: I rejoice that, Father Hugh, you favor his merits. Happy indeed who spurned the summits of the world; And subjected to the yoke of Christ, sowed pious seeds; From which has arisen a wonderful fruit on every side. A fruit, by which the cloistral Rule saves many: A fruit, which happily fills the granaries of heaven. A distinguished Spirit, the fire of the divine gift Illustrated him, doctrine made him clear; Inflaming him from heaven, making him equal to great Doctors. He famous for merits bears an indelible name: For true poverty he constantly loved; The assaults of the demon by the virtue of faith he put to flight. He the vessel of the eternal Word, and minister of peace, Established peace, reconciled the discordant. He raised by the advancement of the Pontificate, Was a distinguished Man, a cross to the depraved, a model to the benign, And a clear star around the affairs of the Churches. Happy who could secure approach the swords, Conscious of nothing to himself, growing pale at no fault; Nor doubt to die, joined to the love of Christ. Happy whose will be the sheaves when the Lord comes, Whom the good Judge will take from our Order. At that examination may grace protect us. Amen.

Here ends the Life of our glorious Father Norbert.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

By a heavenly voice Norbert is caught up; The Angels minister a snowy garment; At length the Nourishing one manifests herself to the man religious.

But this man, even more ancient a Poet than Bruschius, more clearly than that one supposes, that the Angelic vision preceded, the Marian followed; and thereby admonishes us, that the matter was not wont to be narrated or read by all in the same manner; and farther from the rest also went Antony Trumel a French Poet, whose this poem is read before the Breviary printed at Paris 1574 and 98;

When Father Norbert had his mind toward the Heavenly ones; And by prayers asked, with what garment he should veil himself; The Angel hastens sent down from high heaven, And clothes him with a tunic, glittering with snowy whiteness.

From this so varied relation of the same deed, with some diversity; first begun to be written three or four centuries after, it appears, how ill they deserve of traditions, who while they strive to save each particular point of writers of this kind, as to all circumstances; often bring the very substance of the matter into danger of perplexed hesitation among those, from whom they demand more faith than is needful. Content therefore to hold the matter, let us not dispute, whether the garment, exhibited to Norbert from heaven, differed by more than color from the common form then of the Canonical garment: nay rather let us judge, that it differed either nothing or little. For this the very Statutes of the Order indicate to us, of which from the Parc Ms. this title is found in Ferreolus Locrius, lib. 3 of Maria Augusta cap. 11: In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity, of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; and to the praise and glory of the most glorious Mother of God Mary, supported by the statutes of the Order, under whose holy auspices and pre-showing our Order is believed to have taken its origin under the white habit; and of the Blessed Father Augustine, under whose Rule the same Order is recognized to be instituted; and calling it the Canonical garment; the Statutes and Ordinations and Moderations happily begin and follow. In the preface furthermore in Herdegom is given the cause, why a white, but yet Canonical habit… the holy Man, the most holy Virgin exhibiting it, took up, and resolved his own to bear it perpetually; namely that they by their habit might know and show themselves Canons or Preachers (as from the doctrine of the holy Fathers he himself interprets it). As therefore now from the form of the garments, which the Clerics of our Society of Jesus use, we know, what was, a century and a half ago, in Italy and Spain, where it began, the fashion of the modest habit of Clerics and honest Priests, to whose use the Jesuits by their institute were adapted: so from the habit of the Premonstratensians the idea of the Canonical habit ought to be conceived, used even by seculars in the diocese of Laon; although now five centuries having passed, a great alteration, on the part of seculars; some, on the part of religious, has succeeded, through which now an enormous difference appears. Nor let the Scapular cause a scruple, which we see none of the Canons either Secular or Regular use, also as to the Marian Scapular; except the Premonstratensians: for this too Pagi writes in the Library lib. 1 cap. 3, that as certain of the ancient Canons (namely of Laon) so the Premonstratensian Canons religiously bear and embrace the Scapular, for the habit of the Mother of God the Virgin. Indeed I do not see what Mary can be said specially to have in common with the Scapular either Clerical or Monastic (by which we know Patience and the bearing of the Lord's Cross is noted) that it rather than another part of the religious garment be said that thus the Norbertines had it 130 years before the Carmelites, to be a token of Marian clientage. If however there is something (which I would gladly accept) I will congratulate the Premonstratensians, that they have possessed that prerogative already from the year 1119; in which the Carmelite Fathers first began to glory in the year 1251: But I return to the habit of the Premonstratensians, who by it are bidden to remember, that they show themselves Canons or Preachers: the force of which expression I note to be especially contained in the Scapular, but as a token of the cross to be preached; inasmuch as it is the figure of the Cross: nor was its use so proper to those of Laon, that it was not found elsewhere too. For those who by their proper title were called Preachers, as they were instituted by St. Dominic Canon of Osma in the 13th century, so it is probable that they likewise retained the form of their garment too, and so also of the Scapular, from the Canons of Osma in Spain: whence one may make a conjecture about several others too. Indeed as varied as is the habit of the Regular Canons in various regions, as also the preachers. so varied was that of the seculars too, among whom that regularity had its beginning at various times and by various authors. But that I may be silent about the more commonly known ones

in Belgium and elsewhere, inspect the Monasticon Anglicanum vol. 2, and see page 367 the Hospitallers of St. John the Baptist; page 755 and 783 the Gilbertine of Sempringham, both Augustinian Canons, yet in habit more diverse among themselves and from others, than are the Premonstratensians and the Preachers.

CHAPTER II.

From book III of Hermann the Monk on the Miracles of St. Mary of Laon.

§ I. The first meeting of St. Norbert with the Bishop, the leading to Laon, the acceptance of Prémontré offered.

Cap. I

[9] For Paschal the Pope being dead at Rome, when John the Cardinal succeeding him had been called Gelasius; Bartholomew having set out to the Council of Reims, and wishing to come into France, had ended his life at Cluny; the Cardinals who had come with him, when they saw that they could not return to Rome, for making an election; compelled by necessity, immediately elected to the Presidency of the Apostolic See from the nearest city Lord Guido, Archbishop of Vienne, a noble and industrious man, uncle of the Queen of the Franks, namely the wife of King Louis: and consecrating him Pope in the same province they called him Callistus. He therefore before he went to Rome, wished to hold a general Council in France, and commanded almost all the Bishops and Archbishops up to the West, with the Abbots and other ecclesiastical persons, to come together to the city of Reims, at which Council also the aforesaid King of the Franks was present. For the cause therefore of this Council the abovesaid Lord Bishop Bartholomew with his clerics and men, going to the city of Reims, when he had now passed the monastery of St. Theodoric a; saw the abovementioned man Norbert, with two Clerics sitting not far from the road: for a little before that same Norbert had heard two voices, as he was afterward wont to relate, of which the first from one side had cried; This is Norbert and his Companions; but the other from the other side had subjoined, This is Norbert and his Companion: which what it signified will be said later. These two voices therefore being heard from the height of the air, Norbert astonished turns aside from the road; and sitting on the ground with his two Companions, astounded looks around about.

[10] Without delay, the aforesaid Bishop approaching, did not, he falls in with Norbert and his companions, like the Priest or Levite that man wounded by robbers being seen, pass by; but turning aside from the road, kindly greeted them; then asked, who they were. Norbert answered, that he was from b Lotharingia; and that, his parents being left, and the vanity of the world, he had proposed to follow the religious life; and for the norm of this religion, the counsel and authority of the Apostolic See being received, he had now for three days delayed at Reims; but that, on account of the multitude of the rich continually flowing together, no entrance to the Pope lay open to him, and sad and despairing having departed from the city, he knew not whither he should turn. Then the Bishop moved with very great compassion, exhorts them to return with him to Reims; promising that he would introduce them to the Pope. But because they were on foot, he commanded his men to dismount from their horses; and so making them ride with them on the journey, having more diligently inquired of them, he heard that same Norbert was born of noble lineage, and in the Church of Cologne c had possessed the greatest riches; but by choosing poverty, had left all entirely. The Pontiff then coming to Reims, enters to the Pope: modestly suggests, that it was not good, that he being the Father of the universal Church; should converse only with the rich, but the poor be repelled from his conversation. And immediately the Pope assenting; Norbert and his Companions are introduced by him, and are refreshed by Apostolic conversation. But because the Pope was too occupied there, he could not fully satisfy their desires or conversations; he promises the same Bishop, that, the Council finished, he would immediately go to Laon, and rest there for some days, and converse sufficiently with them; then he leads them with him to Laon: and he asks that he send them ahead, and admonish them to find themselves at Laon. As long therefore as they were afterward at Reims, the Bishop always kept them with him: then returning to Laon, he never permitted them to be separated from his company. The Lord Pope coming afterward, as he had promised, he received most officiously, as was worthy; and then at last satisfied Norbert and his Companions most abundantly with his conversation.

[11] There was then outside the walls of the city of Laon a certain little church, built in honor of St. Martin, and there offers him the little church of St. Martin, in which now many times the same Bishop had placed religious Clerics, who should serve God there; but no one being able to profit there, the same little church had returned into his hands. Seeing therefore the aforesaid Bishop that Norbert wished to follow the religious life; he began to persuade him, that he should remain in the same little church of St. Martin. But Norbert, understanding his effort, Not for this, he said, did I leave greater riches at Cologne, that I might now seek lesser ones at Laon. I do not wish to remain in cities, but rather in desert and uncultivated places. To whom the Bishop; Desert, he said, and hidden places and suitable for religion in this Bishopric very many I will show you, and the shown ones being accepted I will confer. He said: and after the departure of the Lord Pope taking him, he showed him, not all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, but that greatest forest of his diocese, which is called d Terrassea. He led him therefore to the place, which is called e Foigny, demonstrating to him the opportunity of waters, and pastures, then Foigny and Thenailles and of forest and lands suitable for religion. Then he, prayer being made; Truly, he said, this place is altogether suitable for religion; but it is not destined to me by God. The Bishop thence led him to another place of the forest, which is called Thenailles f: which being shown to him, after prayer made, as before, the same Norbert said; Truly it suits religion enough, but neither is this destined to him by God. Then the Bishop returning to Laon, led him into the forest of g Vosges; and showed him in the forest a certain place, which is called Prémontré ("the Shown Meadow") h, or Praemonstratus. Let whoever reads these things see, and at last Prémontré: of what devotion this Bishop was; who the Episcopal affairs being left, led around an unknown man through so many wooded and pathless places, not without great labor: which although even today, when they are inhabited by many, seem horrible; yet then were much harsher, and more terrible, as remote from all habitation of men, and suitable only for wolves and boars.

III

[12] Coming therefore to the aforesaid place Prémontré, they enter for the sake of praying a certain little church, where when the Saint had passed the night in prayer, built there in honor of St. John the Baptist. This was of the right of the monastery of St. Vincent of Laon, and some Monk from the same monastery was sometimes directed thither to perform the divine Office: but because the Mass finished bread was not found there, unless it were brought from elsewhere; now with the little church itself the place had remained almost uncultivated, and desert. When therefore the Pontiff, the prayer finished going out, admonished the man of God Norbert to rise from prayer, since now the hour of the impending night urged, and there was no place of remaining; but his village, which is called Anizy i, where necessity compelled them to lodge, was still a mile distant; the Servant of God going out asked him, that he would depart with his men, and would permit him to keep vigil there the whole night. Then the Bishop the horses being quickly mounted, as the night was now coming on swiftly came to Anizy; nor however unmindful of Lord Norbert, again sent him through his messenger bread and other necessaries: and morning being made returning to him, he inquires what he wished to do.

[13] he soon obtains the same: He cheered with very great joy, here I remain, he said, Lord Father, because I know this place to be destined to me by God: here my rest and seat will be: here through the grace of God many will be saved. Nor however will this little church be the principal seat, but on the other side of this mountain they will build

for themselves a dwelling in which they will rest. For I saw this night in a vision as it were a very great multitude of white-robed men, bearing silver crosses, and candlesticks, and thuribles, and going around the same place singing. The Pontiff therefore magnificently gladdened, yet not wishing to do injury to the monastery of St. Vincent, of whose right the same place was; the Abbot of St. Vincent being summoned, gave them at that time a more useful exchange: and so he made that place with the church free to Lord Norbert, by the authority of his k privilege. The Servant of God Norbert therefore remained there. But the Bishop indeed returned to Laon, but did not cease assiduously to bear the care both of him and of his companions.

[14] After a few days the man of God coming to Laon, enters the School of Master Radulph, he gains companions, and suffers one of the chief ones a thief, who had succeeded his brother Master Anselm being dead; and making an exhortatory sermon to his Scholars, immediately converted seven of them, the richest, who had lately come from Lotharingia, and led them with great money to his church. But the ancient enemy, who has always been wont to envy the advances of the servants of God, studied to disturb this too in its very beginning: and as he seduced Eve in Paradise, and depraved Judas among the other Apostles; so also he corrupted one of the two companions, who had come with him. For he taking secretly at midnight the aforesaid money, brought by the Scholars, and committed to him by the Master, and fleeing from the church, secretly departed, and left the aforesaid Scholars in much penury and necessity l. And then first the man of God remembered the voices, which near the city of Reims we said above that he had heard, and he himself understood, and to the Lord Bishop consulting about this, he expounded the second voice, which had cried; This is Norbert and his Companion; that it had signified this, that of the two companions, whom the heavenly voice had denied to be of his fellowship, who had come with him, one only was to remain, the other was to go out with Judas.

[15] And he indeed so understood it. But Lord Leonine m, Abbot of St. Bertin, a most religious man, and most skilled both in gentile and in other letters, lately reading this little book, immediately interpreted that voice otherwise: And commanded me to place here his opinion on his behalf; yet the Abbot of St. Bertin explains it otherwise. saying; from the very consideration of the time and of the person approaching, it can be plainly understood, that that voice attested Bartholomew the Bishop to be the Companion of Norbert. For when, he says, having delayed three days, and not being able to speak to the Pope, sad and despairing he had gone out from the city; and knew not what now to do, and whither to turn; and seemed to himself to have no consolation except God, unless in his two companions, in whom he trusted that they would cleave to him indivisibly wherever he went, a voice sounded to him from above: This is Norbert and his companion. As if more openly he had said, Do not despair, or trust in your two companions, because behold near is the Bishop, whom God has given you as companion; who leading you back with him, will make you converse with the Pope, who in your tribulations will be a most sweet consoler to you; who will give you a church, in which you may rest, and make fruit. These things Lord Leonine, Abbot of St. Bertin, commanded me to write: and, I believing that he had truly well and faithfully understood, gladly obeyed him.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

could not be ignorant of the cession of Adalbero. Which being made Norbert was not at once led there: but before Bartholomew went to Reims, and began to know Norbert; he could have offered and given the place to Wido, on this condition, that he should institute there a monastery of his Cistercian order; which not succeeding, or did Bl. Wido first inhabit it? either because the condition did not please the Cistercians, or because Wido divinely knew this place to be destined for Norbert, but another elsewhere for himself, the place remained free to the Bishop: who yet did not judge that mention should be made of the first donation having obtained no effect, and probably not yet entered in the records; but rather of the Vincentians keeping the legitimate records of their once right: which also moved Norbert, that he wished the matter confirmed by these rather than by those: but meanwhile Bernard could glory in some benefit of his own: he could also call Wido the first inhabitant of the place: as one who came there with the intention of remaining there, which none of the Vincentians had before intended. It pleases furthermore from the relation of an eyewitness, and a most friendly man to us while he lived, Lord Joseph Dapiano, to receive the description of the place, as it is transcribed by Polycarp. To one tending to Prémontré, in the very valley of the meadow of Prémontré, on the right occurs a very old chapel, of middling size, receiving light within only through little windows, consisting of solid stones, once of St. John the Baptist, today called of St. Norbert by the Premonstratensians. An accurate description of the place itself. Near this chapel there stands even today a building very ancient, which served St. Norbert and his first Companions at the beginning of the Order for a dwelling, whence also it is called the Dormitory of St. Norbert; and the aforesaid Chapel and Dormitory are situated in the valley, among the most limpid and most pleasant fishponds. Both are distant from the Premonstratensian Arch-monastery, by the situation of the place, by four greater gates, courts, ambulatories of the temple, the form of the gardens and orchards, and by their whole structure everywhere referring to a cross; distant, I say, from the Arch-monastery about three hundred paces, with two rows of trees placed on the way on either side, and on the right side fishponds offering themselves almost up to the Abbey itself, with a most pleasing aspect, especially in summer with the sun shining. But over against the said Chapel, on the left side of one tending to Prémontré, in the ascent of a hill or little mount there offers itself a most limpid and most salutary spring; which is especially celebrated for this reason, that thence St. Norbert with his first Companions quenched his thirst, whence up to today it is called the Spring of St. Norbert, and is visited as efficacious and suitable for driving away fevers.

§ II. The Abbey of St. Martin erected at Laon. Hugh substituted for Norbert at Prémontré: his manifold commendation.

[16] In the little church of St. Martin Walter being made Abbot, Afterward therefore the Bishop seeing, that in the same Premonstratensian place there had now come together no small number of Brothers living religiously; asked Lord Norbert, that he should place some of them in the abovewritten little church of Bl. Martin, in which he himself when asked had been unwilling to remain, who should study to build it up and augment it to the honor of God. He acquiescing in the prayers of the Pontiff, placed a few of his brothers there, and set over them as Abbot a religious man Lord Walter. To whom God (Bl. Martin praying, as we believe) immediately conferred such great grace, that of him too that seems able to be said, which about Sara the girl the Angel said to Raguel her father: Therefore no one could have her, because to this one fearing God your daughter is owed as wife. Likewise that little church of Bl. Martin, when several had undertaken it from the Bishop to be governed, and none of them could profit there, to this Abbot Walter such good fortune through divine grace clung as companion, that within twelve years, a Convent of more than five hundred Brothers serving God was found there. Whence not undeservedly I would say, that it was reserved by God for him. Yet such great poverty there at first he sustained, that besides one ass, Burdinus a by name, they had almost nothing else: which leading in the morning into the nearest forest of Vosges, and the cut wood being placed on his back, he wonderfully augments the place with persons and possessions they would bring it back to Laon, and from the sold wood would buy bread for themselves; many times remaining fasting so long, until that bought bread after none was brought to them. They however, Abbot Walter consoling, not failing in such great penury, but assiduously serving God, and laboring with their own hands little by little profiting, came now, God giving it, to such great abundance; that from their vineyards they frequently have three thousand measures of wine, and both in the possession of lands and mills, and of cattle, surpass almost all the monasteries of the Bishopric of Laon. So great affluence too of charity and hospitality is found there, that on account of the reception of guests, and on account of the daily relief of the poor, God seems in a wonderful manner there to multiply and augment all things, so that now it is reckoned among the chief and excellent monasteries of France.

[17] Afterward also in the Premonstratensian church Lord Norbert was unwilling to be Abbot, Norbert also receives women but constituted that one of the two companions, who had remained with him, named Hugh, Abbot of the same place. But not only the cohorts of men, but also of women, the same Norbert studied to convert to God; so that today b in various places of the same church, we see more than a thousand Lay-sisters serve God with such great rigor and silence, that in the strictest monasteries of Monks one can scarcely find a like religion. Nor was he content, that the throngs of his Brothers be confined within the bounds of the diocese of Laon; but like bees, which going out from the little vessels in which they made honey, fly across to other places to make honey, he himself too began to seek out various and desert places, he orders the general Chapter to be convened each year, and the Brothers being directed to build new monasteries. But he constituted, that from all the monasteries, which either in his life, or after his death, would follow the institution and norm of his institution and Rule, every year on the feast of Bl. Dionysius all the Abbots should come together to the first Mother, from which they had proceeded, that is, the Premonstratensian church, as if to a fountain to drink; and placed together should hold a general Chapter, and, if anything, either commonly, or in something, were to be corrected, should there correct it. When therefore not yet thirty years have passed, since Lord Norbert was led there by the abovesaid Bishop; yet now, the divine grace bestowing it, so many monasteries have thence sprung up, that nearly a hundred Abbots are found to have come together there on the aforesaid feast, from them, the Order being greatly increased: not only from France or Burgundy, but also from Germany itself, Saxony, or Gascony. For that I may be silent about others, from the aforesaid church of St. Martin alone, over which still the first Abbot Lord Walter presides, already twelve other monasteries have proceeded; nor are only the neighboring provinces irradiated by so great a light; but also the sea now the ray of this new sun has crossed, and the city of Jerusalem, some most bright stars being sent over, by irradiating it has made splendid.

[18] What others think I do not know: I believe with my heart, and faithfully pronounce with my mouth, that of all the good things, which are done in so many monasteries, or will thereafter be done, Lord Bartholomew is a consort, and partaker and cooperator. For since the truth in the Gospel says, he who receives a Prophet in the name of a Prophet, shall receive the reward of a Prophet: indeed it is clear that the Pontiff, who not only received the aforesaid servant of God, but also as is written above the Episcopal affairs being interrupted studied to lead him around through so many byways of forests and horrible places, and at last in the Premonstratensian solitude firmly to plant, and the planted one continually to water, will certainly not lack the sweet reward of his fruit. Matt. 10. 41 whence praise and reward is owed to Bishop Bartholomew, as a cooperator. For Blessed Gregory in the homily of the Gospel, In the fifteenth year, expounding the aforesaid sentence more subtly, It is to be noted, he says, that the Lord does not say he shall receive a reward from a Prophet, but the reward of a Prophet. Because the reward which a Prophet shall receive from God for his good work, the same also he himself, who by receiving him was a helper to him, may know that he will obtain. For demonstrating the certitude of this matter more evidently, the same Bl. Gregory also subjoins the testimony of the Prophet Isaiah, who among the cedar, olive, fir, and the other more precious trees, also makes mention of the elm: which although of itself it does not bear fruit, yet when it carries the vine with the cluster, even itself is reckoned by the Lord among the fruitful trees. Which sentence of Bl. Gregory if anyone wishes to inspect more diligently, I think that he will not deride me for having written these things; but faithfully he too will pronounce, that the aforesaid Bishop Bartholomew, although occupied with ecclesiastical offices, seemed to be implicated in secular affairs; yet since he studied always for so long a time to aid the servants of God fleeing the worldly life, also of their pious conversation by the sweet desire c through the grace of God he is a partaker, whence also in the future he will not lack their reward. Which since it is so, I confess that deservedly that aforementioned sentence of Lord Leonine, Abbot of St. Bertin, ought to be praised, because he understood the same Bishop to have been by a heavenly voice announced the companion of Lord Norbert.

[19] But that I may now briefly conclude about the same Norbert, very many testify, that after the Apostles the conversation of no one in the Church made so great fruit in so small a space of time. For although certain ones might say that Lord Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, at the same time fructified no less; Norbert is preferred even to St. Bernard by the Author yet, if anyone diligently attends, I think that he will not deny that Norbert excelled; for Lord Bernard was not the beginner of that religion, but that religion was already flourishing in the d monastery of Cîteaux; in which the aforesaid Bernard when he was a Cleric, the fame of this religion being heard, took up the monastic habit under the Abbot e Stephen: from which monastery too the monastery of Clairvaux proceeded, of which the same Bernard for his sanctity was constituted the first Abbot. as the author of a new Order, He therefore although by his preaching he converted very many, and begot many monasteries from Clairvaux by the grace of God; yet of that religion he was indeed a great waterer and propagator, but not the first planter. But Norbert was the first planter of his institution, and the first beginner by the gift of God. And although his followers say they hold the Rule of Bl. Augustine, yet, that we may say it with the peace of the same Bl. Augustine,

we see the institution of Norbert to be much more rigid, and much more severe and austere, than that of Augustine.

[20] receiving not only men but also women, Moreover in the monastery of Cîteaux only men are received; but Lord Norbert, with the male sex, constituted also the female to be received for conversion, so that we see in his monasteries the conversation of women to be even stricter and more strict than that of men. For those both for necessary works, and for other affairs, after conversion going forth into public, are frequently implicated in ecclesiastical or even secular responses or legations; and many times, those whom in their former life we knew to have been either rustics, or poor, in the habit of religion we behold as if fastidiously riding. But to the women as soon as they have been converted, a perpetual law thereafter remains always to be kept enclosed within the circuit of the house, nowhere to go forth further; to speak to no one, not only stranger, but not even brother or kinsman, except at the window in the church, with two Lay-brothers with the man outside, and two women with her inside residing, and hearing whatever is said. In the very beginning of conversion too, under a stricter discipline than that of men: as soon as they are received, for cutting off all pride and carnal pleasure, even their hair is shorn up to the ears; and that they may more please Christ the heavenly bridegroom, for love of Him, in their fragile and alluring flesh, they are altogether disfigured. To none thereafter is it allowed to have a precious garment, except of wool or sheepskins; to none a silk veil, after the manner of certain Nuns, but to bear above the head a most vile black cloth: and although in such great strictness and vileness they are known to be enclosed, yet in a wonderful manner, Christ working the power, daily we see women, not only rustic or poor, but rather most noble and most rich, both young widows, and also girls, so for the grace of conversion the vanities of the world being spurned, hastening to the monasteries of that institution, and as if running to mortify their tender flesh, that we believe more than ten thousand women to be contained in them today. If therefore Lord Norbert had done nothing else, so that after the Apostles no one gained more for Christ. but the conversion of men being omitted, had attracted so many women to the divine service by his exhortation, would he not have been worthy of the greatest praise? But now since by his doctrine so many thousands of each sex serve Christ, since so many monasteries of his institution shine throughout the world, I do not know, what others think, to me it seems true what very many assert, that from the time of the Apostles there was no one, who in so brief a space of time by his institution acquired so many imitators of perfect life for Christ: and indeed if he had remained longer at the Premonstratensian monastery, he would perhaps then have done many other things; but it pleased the divine predestination, that the honor which in the secular life he declined, he should attain in the habit of religion; and who before conversion was unwilling to be a Bishop, after conversion should become an Archbishop.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

He who lies here as Bishop founded the Marian shrine, At Laon, and likewise the burned houses of the Bishop. He built ten temples: to Benedict he conferred one, To Bernard four, to Norbert five he consecrated. His lineage gives him a diadem; the Church of Laon a miter; Foigny, his funeral; glory and the stars, God.

§ III. The Bishopric of Cambrai refused by Norbert, that of Magdeburg imposed on him refusing.

[21] For Lord Hugh, Abbot of Prémontré, lately narrated to me, that at the beginning of his conversion, when the same Norbert had left the church of Cologne, The Bishopric of Cambrai refused by him and his parents; he came to Valenciennes unshod on foot, and there found Lord Burchard Bishop of Cambrai. When therefore in the morning he had heard that the same Bishop was about to celebrate Mass, coming to the church he asked the same Hugh, who then was the Chaplain of that Bishop, to make him converse with the Bishop. Hugh, not knowing who he was, entering announced to the Bishop, that a certain pilgrim Cleric was before the doors, and wished to speak to him. Then by the command of the Bishop being introduced, when the Bishop had recognized him, (as one whom he had seen in the Emperor's Court many times conversing intimately, and abounding in great riches) immediately astonished with wonder, and suffused with most abundant tears, O, he said, Lord Norbert, who could have believed, that you would leave such great riches, and come of your own accord to such great poverty? Lord God, what is it that I see about Lord Norbert? whom once so proudly clothed, Hugh, who heard it from Bishop Burchard, narrates it to the Author. and so with pompous haughtiness I saw wont to walk? And when Hugh the Chaplain, seeing the Bishop weeping so wonderfully, and scarcely able to speak for excessive weeping; asked him, who was that Norbert, for whom for so long a time he wept? The Bishop answering, If you knew, he said, who he was, you would wonder that he is now such: for when the Emperor gave me the Bishopric of Cambrai, he first offered it to Norbert; but he was unwilling to receive or to have it: for he among the Canons of Cologne was honorable and most rich; but now, as you see, he has left all things for God, and with naked feet endeavors to seek God. These things hearing from the mouth of the Bishop Hugh his Chaplain, and immediately kindled with love for Norbert, who now he too had thought to renounce the world, began to give thanks to God in his heart, who had destined for him such a companion. As therefore once Andrew, hearing the Lord praised by his Master John the Baptist, the same John being left followed the Lord; so also Hugh, hearing Norbert so greatly praised by his Lord Burchard, whose Lord's Chaplain he had been, thereafter the companion of Norbert, the same Bishop being left, clung to Norbert, and his counsel his substance being disposed he became his inseparable companion of pilgrimage and preaching, and with him with naked feet everywhere set out; until coming to Reims to the Council of Pope Callistus, to Lord Bartholomew Bishop of Laon, as we related above, he was made known.

[21] Since therefore it has been related, that he could have been Bishop of Cambrai, but was unwilling; now let it be subjoined, how he was made Archbishop. When he had now converted several of each sex, the vanity of the world being left, to the service of God; and with many monasteries, far and wide built, his fame extended everywhere; he was sent by the great-named Count of Champagne Theobald, son of the sister a of Henry King of the English, to a certain most excellent Prince of b Lotharingia, whose daughter the same Count led as wife. It happened meanwhile, that the Archbishop of Magdeburg c being dead, the Clerics of the same city came together to make an election. But in the same year Lord Norbert, conversing with his intimate Lord Godfrey d, Bishop of the city of Chartres, who as he had divinely learned that he would be a future Bishop told him, that he had known through a vision, that in that year he would be a future Bishop, but he did not know of what city or province. When therefore the Clerics of Magdeburg had indeed elected several, but had not unanimously consented to the election of any; it is announced to them that two legates of the Apostolic See, religious men, had come from the city of Rome to Mainz e, of whom one was called Peter f, the other Gerard, who afterward made Pope succeeded Celestine, and preceded Eugenius. Fearing therefore the aforesaid Clerics, lest from the discord of election a perhaps pernicious sedition should arise among them, counsel being taken they go to the aforesaid Legates of the Apostolic See, and place their election in their mouth; and promise that they would consent to whomever they should elect. The Legates seeing such great devotion of theirs, proposed to receive no money, which was offered to them by some through go-betweens; lest perhaps the Apostolic See and especially the Bishops should be defamed over this.

[22] When therefore decently and praiseworthily and without any mark of Simony of finishing it, they sought the mercy of the Lord, and with wise men placed in the church thence diligently treated; behold unhoped-for and unforeseen, coming from France for the sake of praying, thus beyond expectation he was offered to the people of Magdeburg Norbert enters the same church, altogether ignorant of the same business. Which being seen the Legates, astonished, wondering, and rejoicing that their prayers were heard by God, call together the Magdeburg Clerics; and ask whether still remaining in their opinion, they would receive one elected by them. Those therefore unanimously answering, that they would receive without any contradiction whomever they should name; immediately the Legates subjoining, And we, they say, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, name and elect to you Lord Norbert, a religious and proved man, and transmitted to us and to you for fulfilling the present business, as we believe, by the Lord God. Astonished at so incredible and swift a deed Norbert is stunned and wonders; and ignorant whether he is awake or sleeping, where he is or whence he came, he wonders questioning with himself. Immediately therefore by the Clerics he is seized, dragged, and to the altar is not led, but violently carried. With a high voice, Te Deum laudamus, is sung; then by the bond of obedience compelled, he is consecrated Bishop g; so therefore while he flees the Bishopric of Cambrai, he attained, God willing, the Archbishopric of Magdeburg; in which living religiously for some years, at length from his labors he rested with a blessed end.

[23] He having departed, his successor Hugh, But the aforesaid Companion of his Lord Hugh, elected by the same Norbert Abbot of the Premonstratensian monastery, and confirmed by Lord Bartholomew the Bishop, assiduously studied to water by exhorting and laboring together the vine, which Lord Norbert had planted with him, God through all things mercifully giving it increase. But seeing that little church now could not suffice for such great a multitude of Brothers which had come together, and daily through the grace of God was augmented; knowing also that Lord Norbert, as was said above, according to his prediction, had foreseen in spirit, that on the other part of the mountain a greater church was to be built; counsel being taken with his Brothers, he asked Lord Bartholomew the Bishop, as the Founder and Father of the place, to come; that all the workhouses being disposed, he himself should place the first stone in the foundation of the church. To the Bishop coming therefore that whole army of God, with a great procession, joyful ran to meet, praising God in the voice of exultation and confession. But immediately the Bishop remembering the vision, which Norbert on the first night of his coming in the same place had related that he saw, namely the multitude

namely of white-robed men, bearing silver crosses with candlesticks and thuribles, and going around the same place singing, he builds the greater church with workhouses. greatly exulted and gave thanks to God; because what Norbert had seen in a vision, this same the Bishop now beheld truly bodily to be done. Of what kind therefore the church, dormitory, refectory, and the other workhouses there, and what kind of wall around the circuit of the monastery was made by the aforesaid Hugh, it is permitted plainly to inspect to everyone coming: because in the richest and most ancient monasteries of France a like work can scarcely be found: so that all coming and inspecting, immediately say; That in truth, not by man, nor through man was this made, and it is wonderful in our eyes.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

CHAPTER III.

On the Monasteries founded by St. Norbert near Xanten and at Magdeburg.

[24] The monastery of the Siegburg institute When I read in the Life of the Saint num. 11, that being ordained Priest, he betook himself to a certain monastery of Siegburg of great and illustrious fame, and again num. 19, that about to breathe a little from the persecutions of those persecuting him, at the beginning of his begun preaching, he betook himself sometimes to a certain monastery of Monks of Siegburg, which is distant three leagues from Cologne; I wondered indeed at that "certain," as superfluous, nor however thought of anything other than the very Siegburg monastery, distant indeed four hourly leagues, but only three German miles from Cologne. But after I fell upon the diploma of Arnold Archbishop of Cologne, the first of that name, in the last year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1144, given on the mount of Vurstenberg; I understood that a monastery had been built there, which was under the power of the Abbot of Siegburg, who had accepted the foundation, and had placed there Monks chosen from his own; and so I comprehended, how little idle in that place is the "certain"; and that perhaps several others were thus subject to the same as if Arch-monastery, which individually could be called "certain Siegburg ones," that is of the Siegburg Order or jurisdiction: such also would have been the other one indicated num. 19 without a proper name, and to be sought not beyond Cologne, like the Siegburg one, but on this side of it; and so seven leagues or at least four nearer to Xanten, than that, distant altogether twenty leagues; since in another sense some one can be understood, distant from Cologne indeed three, but from Xanten thirteen or sixteen leagues; (although now no such is found, probably destroyed) to which the one is closely adjacent, of which the aforecited Diploma treats, at Vurstenberg near Xanten, on a mount, distant only two thousand paces, and called Vurstenberg; and the same to be passed by one coming from Cologne (as num. 11 Norbert came) and tending to Xanten. But since in its recent foundation St. Norbert had a good part, it is easily known why he approached there from the way, about to prepare himself for some days for the first-fruits of his Priesthood, to be duly offered to God. The copy therefore of that diploma, sent to our Bolland by a certain Lord of Cleves Justus Dudink, I judged should here be set forth; that it may appear how seriously the Saint, immediately from his conversion, applied his mind to promoting the worship of God, a part no less than great of his resources being conferred there; and that he had as companion of the pious work Heribert his brother, otherwise unknown to us: from whom probably much posterity flowed, to participate in the piacular Sacrifices, to be said on the anniversary of the Saint or the day after, as today the custom obtains, in the solace of the deceased of that family. To the same probably look also Heribert and Erebert of Genepe, brothers, of St. Norbert, perhaps cousins, here likewise named among the benefactors of the aforesaid monastery. The tenor of the Diploma is such.

[25] In the name of the Holy and undivided Trinity. Arnold, not by merit, but by the calling grace of God, called Archbishop of the holy Church of Cologne, To all who have obtained a faith common with us, Arnold the 2nd Archbishop of Cologne testifies, perpetual peace and eternal salvation. We wish it to be known to you, how the monastery of Bl. Mary, on the mount Vurstenberg near Xanten, was either begun, or how we, both with God and with men, desiring it to be advanced in all things, have decreed a general written record to be made of all the things which have hitherto been reasonably offered there, namely for provoking the devotion of the good, and for repressing afterward the craftiness of the depraved. Come therefore, let us show our benignity toward that place, and this page, filled with the various gifts of the faithful, like a little crown interwoven with various flowers, let us faithfully offer to the Lord Jesus Christ and to His holy Virgin Mother. A certain ministerial of St. Peter a, named Henry of Alpheim, when he was a man of approved probity, by the counsel and aid of Norbert, the work being begun at the persuasion of St. Norbert, then a Canon of Xanten, afterward Bishop of Magdeburg, obtained from Lord Frederick Archbishop of Cologne with earnest prayers, that, for obtaining eternal remuneration, the Benefice, which had come to him on the aforesaid mount Vurstenberg by paternal, nay ancestral transmission, he should hand over to the Siegburg monastery by legitimate donation; namely on this account, that he should summon some Brothers of the same monastery, who in the property of that benefice should begin the monastic order. The Archbishop, as he was prompt and easy to such things, the Legate before suitable witnesses confirmed the fief to the Church of Siegburg. through Henry of Alpheim; The Brothers were led there: and little by little the divine religion began to flourish there, and it was firmly decreed, that that place should be perpetually subject to the Siegburg monastery. The same Henry too offered to God, and to St. Mary, the allodium, which he had in the village of b Geist, one manse, paying annually 7 shillings, except two coins; 8 maldars c mixed, that is half barley and half oats; two pigs worth 4 shillings, and six denarii he offered, and the plot of a house lying at Xanten, whose rent is of 12 coins.

[26] Following the example of this man the aforesaid Norbert, and his brother Heribert, to have augmented the endowment of Xanten with his brother Heribert, offered the farmstead Egre, with all its utility: and that the grant might be firmer, and the offering more pleasing to God, the small farmsteads given from elsewhere they equanimously made to the same: of which farmstead the annual revenues are, 6 maldars of wheat, 3 of rye, 12 of barley, 8 of oats, one of legumes, which together make 30 maldars; for the tract of the Rhine 11 shillings, and a turbot, if any is caught in that tract, half. They offered also a little field in Wedreke, which pays 2 maldars of rye, one and a half of barley: another little field there paying 3 maldars of malt d, 4 shillings except two denarii. Likewise another in Meitreke, which renders 10 and 8 denarii. and Abbot Cuno of Siegburg. Cuno the first of the Siegburg ones, an Abbot always ready for every good work, received from Rudolf of Bart, by exchange, one farmstead in Birtine; and handed it over to Bl. Mary, with the consent of his whole Convent, with all things pertaining to it, woods and fields, lands and meadows, cultivated and uncultivated. But the right of that farmstead is in all the wood, which pertains to the Count's farmstead in the same village, when after the pasturing of acorns the pigs are taxed, which they call e cranna, that the Official of the Brothers receive the tithe of all the pigs, or denarii for the pigs; and in the jurisdiction of either farmstead, if any crime is to be punished, as are thefts, shedding of blood, and the like, whatever advantage shall come thence, the Officials indeed of the Count and the Brothers shall equally divide between them.

[27] The farmstead at Walheim Alward and Wolthildis offered, Other things offered by others are enumerated coming to the commission with their sons: and in Erpete 8 acres of cultivated land, 4 acres of vineyard, and the plot of a house at Pielcheim land, paying 4 shillings of Soest f money; and 15 bondservants, of whom the males will pay 9 denarii, the females 4. Agena Abbess of g Frethena, and Stephen her brother, gave the allodium at Mereheim, which pays one mark of heavy money, three statues with 10… Reinbert of Wiscele and Theodore his son, gave at Veldwig 2 manses and a half, with all utility; 8 men paying census for census of wax: at Nereibich a house and plot, paying 12 denarii i of Deventer. At Birte Bertrudis gave a manse, which pays 4 shillings and a half of Duisburg k money: At Lengele land, paying 3 shillings of Deventer: in Diedeheim 30 coins of the same money. Hubert of Oie gave at Magellheim half a pound. Razo of Birte, at Hungese, 3 shillings of Deventer. Of the same village Rutger, at Ore, 5 bondservants for census of wax. Volmar the Priest of l Rese, at Wetzevelt, 4 maldars of rye and one of beans. At Boemelwig, Bernard of Wisse, 3 maldars of rye, and as many maldars of barley malt. Vietpold of Recken, at Pellheim, gave one manse, paying 3 shillings of Dortmund money. Wiedekint of Duisburg an allodium at Hile, paying 10 denarii. Trimintrudis a handmaid of God,

procured at Rieneheim land rendering half a mark.

[28] At Butreche for Vertler was offered an allodium, with various rights: whence are paid 4 shillings. There Frederick of Butburg gave a small piece of land, which pays 14 denarii of Deventer money; a pound, and 3 shillings m of Dortmund. There the Brothers themselves procured an allodium, which yields 4 shillings of Cologne money. Gertrude of Nervenich gave for the soul of Count Adalbert a possession, which pays 3 shillings and a half of Dortmund, and one bondservant. At Viscele, Bertrad of Hogeslotreheim, offered an allodium, whence ought to be paid 4 shillings and 6 denarii of Cologne money for the light of the church. Likewise a certain woman offered goods, of which 18 denarii after her death will begin to be paid. A certain Megfrid, at the time of his commission, at Kierbruch 4 bondservants, with an allodium, which pays 27 shillings of Cologne money, and 3 statues, that is three lodgings of a night; except the reception, by which he is to be received, who brings the census from there; which will be a supper, and the rest of a night and a midday meal in the morning. At Kasle, a certain Hugh, for his daughter, 25 coins of Duisburg money. In Hulse the Brothers bought an allodium, whose utility is 12 annual denarii.

[29] Bertolf, Count of Stroemburg n, offered legally to the Siegburg monastery 5 manses, which the aforesaid Cuno, Abbot of that place, with the consent of his whole Church, conferred for the uses of the Brothers serving God at Xanten on the mount. These manses pay 15 shillings of Deventer money, 10 pigs, 5 sheep; likewise from the Count of Stromburg, and there will be no Advocate of this allodium, except only the Archbishop of Cologne; and the tenants are to be reckoned in the same manner, as the other men of St. Peter in that place, in meadows and fields, woods and waters. A certain Arnold of Kempen returned a fief, which he had had from Almar Advocate of Cologne: which Lord Frederick, the Archbishop, that Arnold asking, gave to Bl. Mary, for the remembrance of his anniversary. This benefice in Kempen at first indeed paid 3: but afterward, counsel being invoked, for the shillings two women were given; whose posterity will give what is just. At Keilar Frederick half a manse, paying 3 shillings of Deventer, and 2 maldars of oats. Before Cleves, Renizo of Strale 5 acres, whose census is 2 shillings of Deventer money. Imo gave a little field, and from Frederick for his daughter, of three sextarii of barley. Gerberg of Seleheim 1 manse at Alfene. Azela of Bumele 6 acres. There Gela of Kalkar a trout for the monument of two maldars of barley. Heribert o of Genepe, for his brother Erebert slain, one manse at Brakel, which pays 7 shillings of Deventer. At Remagen, Manegald a Canon of Xanten, and the above-named Bertrad, procured 5 acres of vineyards, of which the half while the aforesaid Cleric lives, the remaining part he being dead will be of the Brothers on the mount.

[30] Lord Hildolf p the Archbishop, dedicating the oratory of St. Martin on the very mount, gave the possessions of 9 houses at Xanten, of which some paying more, and from the Archbishops Hildolf some less, confer the sum of 5 shillings, for the light of that chapel. On the mount Arnold the Count 1 acre. Adelheid a Nun gave 3 acres. In the field of Megeneete there are 7 acres, pertaining to the mount; of which 1 Volmar and his wife, William 2, Videric of Eile 1, Rudolf of Megeneete 1, Amizia of Budweche, Rudolf of Lo, Bezela of Megeneete 2. At Wentervelde, Henry who professed as a monk, 1 acre. In Ebbecheren, Grunzelinus of Bevenburch, a little possession of 12 coins. Gebehard, Priest of Brutine, below the mount, half an acre. Amelune 1, Snedo 2, acres on the mount. In the wood which is called Hiese, and others: they will have equal right in all things, near the men of either farmstead in Britine. Cuno, a Cleric in Wissele, at Remagen bought an acre of vineyard, and gave it to Bl. Mary. Heribert of Britine, an allodium which he had possessed on the mount of 5 acres of land; and handed it over with the consent of his own. In Lappesdal one acre, from a certain Ingelger, about to set out to Jerusalem, received on the right side of the mount. Rutger and Hermann, his brother, gave a field, as is thought, to the quantity of 1 acre. Gerhard of Lattingen, 2 acres at Xanten.

[31] These, and any others there are, at various times, in various places, by various persons of each sex, All which Arnold himself confirms. to the Lord Jesus Christ, and His holy Mother the perpetual Virgin Mary, in memory of all the faithful living and dead, legally on the oft-named mount offered and legitimately received, we have strengthened by our Episcopal authority; imprecating the eternal judgment of God, and a judicial sentence upon every soul of a man, whoever shall in any way or device defraud any of these, or consent to its being defrauded; that as long as he lives, he be void of all the prayers, which on that mount, or throughout the whole Church are made; and dying, let him take a part with those, whose worm dies not, and the fire is not extinguished; because their sin will never be blotted out from the face of God, unless he repent, and worthily make satisfaction to God. Done on the Mount Vurstenberg, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1144, the 7th Indiction, in the first year of the Apostolic Lord q Lucius, with the Roman Emperor reigning, of the West, Conrad III in the 7th year; of the East, under Emmanuel Comnenus in the 2nd year. r

[32] By these most praiseworthy beginnings, that I may be silent about the middle, how conformable also the last were, as to the erection of Monasteries, the diploma of Norbert himself will teach, sent to us by the Abbot of Strahov Vitus, under this title: How Norbert led back the church of the Bl. Virgin from the Seculars to the Brothers of his Order. Finding the church of St. Mary impoverished, Likewise on the poverty of the place, and how he provided anew for the Brothers. The tenor of the Diploma is this. In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. I Norbert, by the grace of God Archbishop of the Church of Magdeburg. Be it known to all both future, and present; that I attending to the state of the Church of Magdeburg, and desiring to exalt it in religion, and to restore the diminished, and to reform the less corrected, or to change for the better; in the very City found a church, dedicated to Bl. Mary the Mother of God the perpetual Virgin, so attenuated internally and externally, that both the repairs and roofs of that church were almost altogether annihilated, and to the twelve Clerics constituted in it to serve God the provisions did not suffice. For of the things which pertained to that church, very many were even distributed to Soldiers in benefice; some lay uncultivated through negligence; some usurped for the uses of others, so that the church was almost irrecoverably destitute.

[33] We therefore condoling with their poverty and their frequent complaint, the Clerics being placed elsewhere. and desiring the church rather to grow than to decrease; by admonishing, exhorting, persuading, obtained this from them; that going out from that church, they should yield to religious men, living a common life under the Rule of Bl. Augustine, and should commit themselves to our provision without any condition. But that they themselves might live in cloistral discipline, as before, under a Dean, we ascribed them to other churches in the city. Some we placed in the church of Blessed Nicholas; some we sustained from the goods of that church; but our Brothers, substituted in the church, we endowed with the former possessions and rights of the church: and for ampler peace and quiet, we appointed them to have respect to no one, except to us and our successors. That therefore these things may remain in perpetuity unshaken, he hands it over to the Premonstratensians. by the Ban of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and our own we confirm them. To those conserving them peace and remission of sins. But if any person of any condition shall presume to nullify the labor of our zeal, or with rash boldness to disturb the poor of Christ, or on any occasion shall wish to eliminate them; let him be Anathema Maranatha until the day of the Lord. I Elinder subscribe. I Uwern subscribe. I Werner subscribe. I Sidagus subscribe. I Anselm subscribe. I Theoderic subscribe. I Sigebodo subscribe. I Godescalc subscribe. Done from the Incarnation of the Lord in the year 1129, the 7th Indiction, the 4th of the Kalends of November, in the suburb of the City of Magdeburg in the Abbey of Blessed John the Baptist.

ANNOTATIONS D. P.

p Hildolf, none after Frederick is found in Gelenius and the Sainte-Marthes: whom you may hence correct, and besides Hildolf the successor of St. Anno, who died in the year 1079, understand that to Hugh who died in Italy, at the year 1138, succeeded Hildolf II, and held that See for some time before Arnold, whom they make the immediate successor of Hugh.

q Mabillon found in some Necrology that this Pope Lucius died in the same year on the 25th day of August; but I think I have demonstrated in the Paralipomena to the Pontifical Chronology, that he did not die before the 13th of February following, which is also proved hence.

r Chrysostom vander Sterre in the vernacular Life of St. Norbert writes, that this monastery was afterward handed over to Nuns, who compelled by the iniquity of the times, at length migrated into the town of Xanten, as I have already said above.

HISTORY OF THE TRANSLATION

From the things printed at Prague and at Antwerp.

Norbert, Founder of the Premonstratensian Order, and Archbishop of Magdeburg (S.)

FROM THE PRINTED WORKS.

CHAPTER I.

Efforts for obtaining the body, formerly begun in Belgium, promoted in Germany, with no effect up to the Empire of Ferdinand II.

The completed translation of the most holy Father Norbert, A threefold treatise published at Prague on this matter, related again by his sons on Mount Zion at Prague, the Brothers of Strahov, published there in the year 1628; and sent to our Bolland, not yet applied to these studies, to Mechelen, thus begins the address to the reader. This now a third time, friend Reader, we speak with you about our holy Father, and the new inhabitant and president of our mount, Norbert: for so often was it necessary. First indeed when we narrated the manner, in which his sacred Relics were sought from Saxony, at length received, and brought into this kingdom. Then when, of the same translated through all Prague to Mount Zion, with solemn and most joyful pomp, we tried to exhibit the triumph to your eyes. And now finally, when the placing of the sacred Body into a certain its own with us either couch or throne (which for the causes commemorated in our Octiduum at that same time it was not permitted to do) performed indeed with a solemn rite, was to be likewise represented to the same your eyes by our hand. but before the third was printed at Antwerp the Norbertine Echo, The first and second writing we have neither received nor greatly require: for both and the third too the Life, death and translation of St. Norbert, again reprinted at Prague in the year 1671, abundantly supplies: yet both had to be indicated by me, because to each, but not to the third, corresponds the Echo of Norbert triumphant, or the Commentary of those things which by the Antwerp church of St. Michael of the Premonstratensian Canons, both for obtaining some Relics of St. Norbert, and for receiving the same with due honor and the common joy of the city, from which others a briefer, were performed, by the author R. P. John Chrysostom vander Sterre, Canon and Prior of the same Church, afterward most worthy Abbot, at Antwerp in the year 1629. From these their narration composed in the Premonstratensian Library Pagi from page 405 to 415, and Polycarp de Hertoghe from page 461 to 489, each the Life; but both more briefly than the dignity of the matter demands, we have woven a more prolix narration. although enough for their purpose. I about to make a more prolix Historie and out of both one, yet omitting here and there some things less making for our matter; begin from the latter, as repeating from higher the series of the things done, in this manner:

[2] That venerable couch of his under the altar of the holy Cross St. Norbert, himself too a great lover of the Cross, held for four hundred years, and more, in his Magdeburg Marian Monastery: until there by the venomous blasts of Luther, and of other heresies sent out from hell, [the Prelates being solicitous about the body of the saint, dishonored among heretics,] the holy Church of Christ was ruined in a pitiable manner. For then when now from the daughter of Zion, that once so celebrated Church of Magdeburg, watered by the sweats of SS. Adalbert, Norbert and others, and cultivated by their labors, all its beauty had gone out; and that venerable deposit of a blessed soul, the Body, I say, of St. Norbert lay among those polluted followers of Luther inglorious; a holy care began to solicit and urge the Prelates of the Premonstratensian Order, to snatch so great a treasure from the hands of the heretics, and to transfer it to a safe place. This piety toward their Parent moreover held various Prelates of the Order very solicitous, and among them Lord John Lohelius, from Abbot of Strahov of the Premonstratensian Order Archbishop of Prague in Bohemia, who with Lord Gaspar Questemberg, his successor in the Abbey, for twenty and more years diligently intended this business; and then also especially Lord John de Pruetis, most worthy General of the whole most white Premonstratensian Order, this holy solicitude affected in a wonderful manner, as was fitting, John de Pruetis the General nearly forty years ago. For that man both eminent in doctrine and piety, but also famous for writings, as he obtained the supreme Mastership of the Premonstratensian Order plainly by a divine gift, so he greatly promoted its beauty and dignity with indefatigable zeal; he took care that its privileges be confirmed and augmented; very many monasteries of his Order being visited, he restored the discipline; and indeed, who performed many and great things, unless the iniquity of the most disturbed times had stood in the way, he would have performed greater. Of the most holy Founder of the Canonical Premonstratensian Order too he was very well deserving, in that, Cardinal Philip of St. Sixtus, called Boncompagno Protector of the Order, being called into the communion of his petition, he obtained from Pope Gregory XIII the cult of St. Norbert to be amplified; and to the same, already long ago added among the enrolled Fathers of heaven, a solemn feast to be decreed: of whom also because in the land of heretics his sacred Relics still lay hidden ingloriously; with what zeal he could he endeavored to snatch them thence.

[3] There exists of this matter in our Archive of St. Michael of Antwerp a not obscure testimony, in the Diploma which to Lord Dionysius Feyten, Abbot of St. Michael, in the year of repaired salvation 1596, fortified with his greater Seal he gave: in the year 1596, which I judged should here be subjoined. John de Pruetis, in the most sacred faculty of Paris Doctor of Theology, by divine permission and the grace of the holy Apostolic See humble Abbot of the renowned monastery of St. John the Baptist of Prémontré of the diocese of Laon, commands the Abbot of Antwerp, and Head and general Reformer of the whole Order; to our beloved son in Christ and Confrater, Dionysius Abbot of St. Michael of Antwerp, greeting and the affection of paternity. The four hundredth and more year is passing since the divine Norbert, Founder of our monastery, and Institutor of the Order, and Archbishop of Magdeburg, migrated to the See of the blessed,… And because by the grace of God, who is wonderful in His Saints, his sacred body still remains whole in the monastery of Bl. Mary, we have already long been made more certain; yet uncultivated, dishonored and spurned, on account of the heresy too tenaciously raging in those parts; We command and ask you by these presents, that if you have found any pious men, who can transfer that sacred body without any tumult religiously, into your monastery of St. Michael, where God worked many things through him; that he take care to transfer it to himself: and thence to us, where his first seat was, and the beginning and origin of the Order is, at an opportune time it may be transferred; and may be more honorably venerated than where it is, and by Catholic Christians, and by us especially honored, as a Father triumphing with God, and interceding for us. You will do a thing worthy of your name, and most pleasing to us and to the whole Order, and you will inform us of all things. At Prémontré, the third of April, in the year one thousand five hundred and ninety-six.

[4] But because Abbot Dionysius, of his domestic substance, on account of the injuries of these ulcerated times, and the most grievous damages which his Antwerp church of St. Michael had suffered, was pressed by not small straits; therefore in this business of the Translation he could effect nothing: but nothing could be done up to the year 1614 but neither Lord Christian Michaëlius, who in the place of the deceased Dionysius in the year 1613 was substituted with the wonderful congratulation of all, although he was borne with a peculiar devotion toward St. Norbert and his sacred Body to be transferred, as also toward the other men of his Order illustrious for sanctity (whom he had care to be expressed in pictures); for the same cause, but also on account of the too cut-short time of his Prelacy, (since he held it scarcely for a year) could also perform anything. There stimulated meanwhile in a wonderful manner his eminent zeal for attempting this Translation, both his pious affection toward the Saint, and that he had understood that John Le Mire Bishop of Antwerp and others of the chief men of the same Church, with great expenses too had not long before tried to claim that holy Body for their Cathedral. There was applied to the helm of the church of St. Michael in the year 1614, Lord Matthew Irsselius, a man even for that cause worthy of immortal memory, that for obtaining for his church of St. Michael this body of the most holy Norbert our Patriarch and the glorious Apostle of the people of Antwerp, he put not a little labor and expense… He when first he went to Brussels, to give thanks to the Most Serene Princes Albert and Isabella, when supplication was made to Albert and Isabella, for the nomination, which they had deigned to make, of his person suspecting nothing such, but even with tears deprecating it, to the dignity of the Prelacy; with humble entreaty, together with the Convent of his church, asked from the same Princes, that for his church of St. Michael, which to their Highnesses running to Antwerp is wont to afford a most pleasing lodging with a prospect over the Scheldt, they would deign to obtain the treasure of the most holy Body of Bl. Norbert: for that it was just, that where the arena of his labors had been, there also of the heresies subdued in the Translation of his body the revived Apostle of Antwerp should triumph. Nowhere better, than in this little eye of cities, was his cult to be propagated; to favor that so just desire. whose Clergy as it is most exemplary, so the Magistrate and people are greatly devoted to piety: nowhere also could he be more safely kept, than in this most fortified city: but also no other place equally to itself, except the Premonstratensian Arch-monastery of the whole Order, could pretend a greater right to obtain his sacred Relics, and allege more titles: as one who venerates and looks up to him as its Apostle with a special cult and honor every year, with the whole Antwerp diocese. These and other things which could serve to bend the most prudent Prince more, he had care to allege; by which he moved the same, that he benignly assigned his favor to this our monastery.

[5] The Prelate did not cease meanwhile to use this occasion: And he indeed assigned his favor, nay several great chief men of the Court being conciliated to him for that end, and among them the Most Excellent Prince of Orange Philip William, who should add their help too; to the same Most Serene Princes, while not long after with their Court running to Antwerp they accepted the lodging offered in the monastery, the same pious petition of his about obtaining the body of St. Norbert, with what insistence he could renewed again before them; but especially

Albert the Pious, and he being dead, she too, who with most humane words declared that he held such a petition pleasing and ratified… But when not long after the Princes ran to Antwerp, under the name of a New-Year's gift, he again suppliantly asked it. But although it is established that the Most Serene Albert for obtaining this sacred Body, even to the Prelates of other monasteries, and especially of Bonne-Espérance, instantly demanding the same, applied no slight labor and care; yet him

— — after the fates carried him off, Having merited the better kingdoms of heaven with the Divine power; His wife, the indefatigable companion of holy labors, Isabella continued the cares of her great husband.

Nay we know that to the same study intended not only the Elector of Saxony, as also various Princes: but also the Princes of Liège and Electors of the Holy Roman Empire Ernest and Ferdinand of Bavaria; likewise Frederick Ittel Cardinal of Soller, and others; but especially the aforementioned Lohelius of holy memory lately Archbishop of Prague, and Gaspar Questemberg Abbot of Strahov and Siloë; who many years ago more than once tried by the authority of the Emperor Rudolf II of glorious memory to expel the impious squatters from the sacred treasure, although hitherto without effect: yet nothing was accomplished. which to the Most Invincible Emperor Ferdinand II, who with so great increase of divine glory and propagation of the Catholic faith today most happily reigns, among the other ornaments of his Empire this glory was reserved. Thus far the people of Antwerp, in their Echo: now with the people of Strahov I proceed.

CHAPTER II.

To the will of the Emperor set forth at Magdeburg the Magistrate at length consents, yet the matter is not accomplished.

[6] It was the year of the Christian Era above one thousand six hundred the fifth and twentieth, In the year 1625 the Abbot of Prague having set out to the Emperor in Hungary when our Most Reverend Father in Christ Lord Gaspar of Questemberg, a Cologner by birth, Abbot of the monastery of the title of St. Mary on Mount Zion, commonly called Strahow, situated over against the citadel of Prague; long before and solicitously, the matter being treated with his own mind and with his own people; and the will of the Divine power, as far as could be done, sought out and implored; at length certain to attempt it, on the 7th of the Ides of November set out from home to the Emperor; the command and authority of the most pious Prince being first obtained, about to undertake the holy business. The Emperor was at that time in lower Pannonia, at Sopron, today they call it Oedenburg, where the assembly of the kingdom being held Ferdinand the son was elected King of the Pannonians and immediately inaugurated. When the Abbot had come there; a little book being given to the Emperor he supplicated. The sum of the petition was; that, for that his highest zeal in the honor of God and His Saints, the Emperor himself by his authority would be willing to initiate a most beautiful work: which work being accomplished, to the kingdom of Bohemia, a sure protection, and a pledge of divine protection, and a treasure more powerful than all the wealth of the Indies; to the Premonstratensian Order, which had once so flourished in Bohemia, and other hereditary dominions, he supplicates that he be willing to intend to recovering the body, much useful to the Commonwealth; and now by the felicity, favor, liberality of the Emperor most holily restoring the monasteries, estates, revenues, formerly destroyed, snatched, occupied by the violent hand of raging impiety, would reflourish, to that Order both universally, and especially in those places, an unspeakable joy of the Father restored, and an incomparable jewel; finally to himself and his august Family, both with God and His friend Norbert grace and the merit of greater protection, and with all the pious, who are and will be, the eternity of a most glorious name, and the imprecations of every good always, his most sacred Majesty would assign.

[7] through his Legate near Magdeburg with troops: That now the opportunity had come of accomplishing the matter, such as it had not even been permitted to hope hitherto. That it must be used. That he knew, the eyes of other powerful men in neighboring Bavaria, in distant Belgium, to be turned to this treasure and their hands extended. That those must be anticipated: all things now placed on a downward slope: that there was need of nothing other, than a command from his Majesty to Lord Aldringer Legate of the Legion, and his General in the camp there as Commissary, a most brave man and at the same time most prudent, having already his quarters in the vicinity of the city; and best conscious of all things there making for this, and otherwise hitherto very prompt of himself to the negotiation of this holy matter; who instructed with letters from his Majesty, to the Metropolitan Colleagues themselves, and to the present inhabitants of the abovementioned monastery, about to approach the men himself, and easily what is wished about to be accomplished. And lest any fraud, the sacred Relics being perhaps vitiated, or profane ones substituted, could intervene; and through the Abbot himself: that he the Abbot was prepared to set out into Saxony, and to be present at the resignation of the monument, in an unknown habit, and to put his hand to the work together: for already some years ago every place had been approached and explored by him. The Body itself when he should obtain and carry off, he would faithfully bring into Bohemia; and in the oratory of his monastery, for the eternal guard of the Kingdom, magnificently place. To the Emperor, of his own accord most intent on the seeking of such heavenly treasures, the petition, both useful in common, and most glorious to his name, vehemently pleased. Wherefore soon to Lord John Aldringer before mentioned he gave letters himself; and ordered him to confer all solicitude, diligence, and industry on this work. To the Duke of Friedland too, the Emperor of the levy of his troops there; finally also to the Metropolitan Colleagues, to the Provost of the monastery; to the Senate. Which letters individually translated from German to write here for the sake of brevity we forbear.

[8] By this will, grace, letters of the most excellent Emperor, the Lord Abbot most joyful, and most instructed for attempting it, on the day before the day of the anniversary commemoration of the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, returned to Prague. Thence, the solemnities being performed according to custom and from the heart, The Abbot sets out the following January; affairs being ordered at home, in the January of the next year, on the very Ides of the month set out into Saxony, to be joined to the assigned Commissary, took the journey. Him he had already by his letters convened, signifying, what had been determined by the Emperor; and at the same time, when to him, and where it should be come, consulting. To which the Commissary both immediately and a second time writing back, taught what ought to be done; and asked that haste be made. When therefore from Prague to Leipzig, thence to Halle of the Saxons (where the Commissary had advised he should come) it was come; and the matter being consulted at Halle, to the same place after a week at last, a certain military expedition making the necessity of so great a delay, the Commissary came, together with Lord Collalto the Count, President of the Imperial council of war, Tribune of Soldiers, and the supreme of the troops there whom they call Marshal; who himself too with great zeal was borne toward the holy business, the will of the Emperor is indicated and conferred his counsels and help liberally. There then among them it was agreed; before all things the will of the Emperor must be opened to the Metropolitans, and their minds tested. But it had happened inconveniently in those days, that all to a man had departed from Magdeburg, on account of the strifes arisen between them and the citizens, dispersed one to one, another to another various places.

[9] And so the Commissary by letters given to Wittenberg, where they then held an Assembly, approached them; both showing that there was, what the Emperor had enjoined on him, and wished from them; and asking, either that they send away some of their own, or designate a place where it might please to come together. There were sent at the same time the letters which were to them from the Emperor: to which the Duke of Friedland too, the supreme Emperor of the troops, had added his own, inscribed to the Dean of the College; vehemently asking, that the opportunity of gratifying the Emperor and so also himself, which they were about to understand from the mouth of the Commissary in person, he himself should in no way let pass, or let it be passed by his Colleagues. They two of their own send away to the Commissary at Dessau, a town of the Prince of Anhalt situated on the Elbe; through them, about to learn what the Emperor wished. There the Commissary (since suddenly for grave causes, called by night by the General to Aschersleben, to the Commissaries of the Chapter of Magdeburg he had been absent two days) came to them, and most humanely addressing them set forth at length the whole matter; showing besides, how much it concerned in this state of affairs to have the Emperor propitious; that an occasion was offered, by which they might deserve him, with no expenses of their own, more than by the lavishing of any gold. He added more things, which seemed congruous for persuading. Which being heard they say they will report to their Colleagues, gathered at Wittenberg. But as they returned there a day's journey; they find that those, the assembly being dissolved, frivolous reasons being pretended, had withdrawn; and letters being given to the Commissary, as soon as possible they explain it. That they ask, he would benignly interpret the deed: that they would give effort, that a little after they meet again.

[10] The incivility by letters given again sharply attacking, he reproaches the men, that the supreme Magistrate of the very World had not been of such account to them, that they would patiently bear a little delay of one day. He asks, that the delegates labor; that the more by the matured answer the College may avert the accusation of contempt. They answer, again redoubling the excuse of their own, that it would come about that shortly they meet again: they promise the best. And so of not a few days under this an useless and troublesome delay had to be swallowed by the Lord Abbot. It happened meanwhile, that a certain expedition being undertaken Lord Henry of Schlik, Count of Passaun, etc., to his Imperial Majesty himself a Counselor, Tribune of Soldiers and Prefect of the artillery with the highest power, with troops went through Dessau. He, by his piety and incomparable zeal for the honor of God and the Saints, with the Lord Abbot much and candidly (for in that virtue too he greatly excels) dealt about the proposed matter; and undertook for certain that he would bring it about, that he himself should become master of his wish; provided he accompany, and the way by which he should lead the soldiery, the troops are moved to the city, Feb. 21. with him persist: within four days altogether he with him and the Commissary would go to Magdeburg. That he plainly believed, by the decree and help of the Senate, the other ways of doing it being passed over, that what the Emperor wished could be effected. And so the Lord Abbot proceeding together into the enemy's land, some more fortified bulwarks being captured in three days, on the fourth day Magdeburg was come to. It was that day the two and twentieth of February, of the very Lord's Quinquagesima. The Senators of the City being before made more certain of the Count's coming, went out into the suburb to meet him; and honorably led through the City to the lodging, which had the sign of the golden Arm, accompanied him. There magnificently, with most ready liberality, at public expense, they received the Count and his companions.

[11] Immediately the Commissary brings forth his credentials before the Senate; The Emperor's letters are exhibited to the Magistrate, and shows what had been enjoined on him by the Emperor. The Count at the same time added the insistence of great authority on his own part: that about to make a great gain quickly and easily, they should obey the Emperor: that they should give up those Relics, a thing among them cast aside and of no price. To the Provost too of the monastery, which had the sacred Body, the Emperor's letters were rendered. He, by a feigning of ill health refusing to make himself available to the Commissary, on the next day took himself off to a suburban estate. It was then dealt with his men, who claim for themselves both the place and the name of Conventuals as iniquitously as falsely, anything but Religious Brothers and sons of St. Norbert less. And these taught by the arts of their Prefect, yet new delays are objected. by various inventions and pretexts of difficulties eluded the petition. Yet at length he determined

the Senate (when the consent of the Metropolitans should be obtained) to bring it about in whatever way, that the will of the Emperor should be obeyed. And so after, both again and several times, with the Conventuals it had been dealt in vain, on the fifth of the Kalends of March, which was Ash Wednesday, from Magdeburg, not without danger of life, unless they had been surrounded by a Fifty of musketeers, they departed. The next day to Aschersleben, where the praetorium of the General himself then was, the Lord Abbot came, to greet the Prince; and him being bidden farewell and thanks being given, about to return home, from the weariness of the delay and the longer absence from his own. But the return he himself dissuaded. For now those sacred Relics both secretly and openly were vehemently sought by the greatest Princes; and they, if he himself withdrew, would gain them. He promised, that he would write to the Senate, and exhort, that they should by no means let pass the present occasion of proving themselves to the Emperor. Easily by him so persuading, the Lord Abbot was persuaded; as hope is credulous, and always extends itself further according to the measure of desire.

[12] It happened thence a few days after, that for the cause of the Commonwealth the Senators went to the Prince. The Duke Wallenstein urges the matter, And so using the occasion, he diligently admonished them, not to let the faculty of gratifying the Emperor offered flow away. Then the Colleagues, now hither, now thither, appointed an Assembly. At length sometime gathered at Torgau, both the Prince and the Commissary, by letters to consent to the Emperor diligently again exhorted them. It was written back by them to the Commissary, that it concerned, that they confer in person: that they asked, that he would deign to come to them at Leipzig, or in some other safe place. The Commissary answered that Leipzig at that time, as somewhat far distant, seemed less opportune for his and the public affairs: that he desired, that to some nearer place they should send away some of their own, where he himself too could come. At length by them, gathered at Torgau on the 22nd day of March, it was consented: and that consent at Torgau, by a solemn writing and sealing, they themselves attested; That it pleased, the Sacred Body should be taken up, and be represented to the Emperor. That it remained, that the manner of taking it up should be entered upon in ways as congruous as possible. The Commissary of all things immediately rendered the Lord Abbot, and on the 22nd of March consent is extorted, from his bulwark at Dessau-Bridge, more certain. While these things between the Commissary and the Colleagues to and fro are dealt, on the other part the Lord Count of Schlick continues to urge the Senators. There was in those days at Magdeburg the Imperial Tribune of soldiers Lord Pechman; this man the Count by daily couriers admonished, that present now there, he should insist with all reasons of persuasion, about to gratify the Emperor very much by this work. He therefore studied of the Magistrate especially each one to lay hold of, then the Magistrate too being persuaded, to occupy, and the conciliated to impel by suitable reasons to hastening. By almost daily letters he taught the Count and the Lord Abbot, what was done, how much it advanced: that with no end, no delay he urged the work: that he passed over nothing of the things, which he esteemed suitable for persuading or moving: that a certain delegate from the Administrator brought it about by his intercession, that nothing certain be determined: that it was incredible, with how great circumspection must be dealt with men of that kind.

[13] to confer help, At length when the Count by letters showed to the Senate; that the Colleagues had now consented; inquiring, whether further for overcoming the remaining difficulties they were prepared to cooperate by their power (when the matter should require it), and to assist the coming Lord Abbot in every case; they every aid being stipulated, ordered the Lord Abbot, who not far from the city prepared for the event was away, to be altogether secure, and to proceed. And so the Lord Abbot, safe by the protection of forty cuirassiers, The Abbot enters on the 28th of March, proceeded. But not until he was now a league away from the city, he stopped; not about to enter, unless the designated ones, who should lead him, came to meet him. The next day therefore of that day (it was that day the 5th of the Kalends of April) the Secretary of the City carried in a chariot met him; and the Lord Abbot being humanely addressed, with almost no one noticing, led him in. Immediately on the next day there were sent by the Lord Abbot, who should deal with the Conventuals, and further should show that the Metropolitans had now solemnly assented: whether they themselves too finally had prepared themselves to obey the Emperor. At the same time were rendered from the Commissary letters to them; in which addressing them accurately, he made them mindful of their recent promise: namely that they would consent, when the Metropolitans had consented. That now those had consented. That it remained now, that they too. and demands from the Conventuals of St. Mary the promised body. But when they see themselves caught the good Brothers, the mask of simulations being laid aside, make themselves manifest; and roundly assert that they neither will nor can assent, unless first they obtain as petitioners the assent of a certain man, on whom they said they depended. He was among the heads of the faction, one of the first leaders of the rebels, a manifest enemy of the Emperor.

[14] The hope therefore and effort of inducing those men being cast aside, the Lord Abbot wholly turned to the Senate, exhibiting the letters, These shuffling, which to them again were given by the Prince the General himself, through the Tribune Pechman asks, that they should by the application of their authority repress this most stupid petulance of those Brothers Portionists (so too they call them); and not further suffer the Most Great Emperor to be mocked by inept men. They through some of their own meeting the Lord Abbot; about to do what was asked, among other things ask, again the Magistrate is appealed to: that he should labor to obtain from the Emperor the sanction of their Privileges: then that what for the protection of the city they were meditating, the most clement will of the Emperor being likewise obtained, it might be permitted to accomplish: nay also that against whoever for the cause of this matter, now or in time to come, should intend a lawsuit or trouble to them, the Emperor would be willing to provide. That they further would give those who should assist for protection; and would be lacking in no part of their authority or power, but that the desired Relics be taken up. The Lord Abbot answered, what was becoming to the Emperor, what worthy of himself, what suitable for them. Among these mutual conversations, behold one to announce; that there had come from the Administrator delegates, who asked the Senate to be given immediately, about to report, what from their Lord they were sent to report. The Senate was given the next day in the Hall. There, he who was chief of those sent, said many things. The head of his words: that the Prince, his Lord, the Administrator of Magdeburg, professed, and now here openly attested; that if the Senate should grant any of the things which are asked, he would hold it for an injury to himself: and so let them see what they do. And that it least befit Evangelical men, presidents of a most religious people, to show themselves so foully cooperators of idolomania.

[15] Yet the Senate remained in its opinion. And so toward the evening of that day they exhort the Lord Abbot, to proceed by night about the tenth hour with his own, those received into the work of the work, to the monastery: that they would provide against danger, if any perhaps could occur; and the matter to be done by armed hand on the 31st of March, he prohibits. let him only go secure, and obtain his greatest wish, no one being about to prohibit. The Lord Abbot did, what they exhorted; the noble man Lord Henry of Mengersem leading, he proceeded with his own to the monastery. The night was beginning after the next day before the Kalends of April. But having entered the place, by the soldiers of the Administrator, who there, the Senate and our men not knowing, kept watch and at the same time feast, with swords and guns rushing hostilely, they were received. That unforeseen matter in a point of time dispersed all as many as had come; owing to the darkness of that time, that no one was slaughtered by the pursuers. In the deep night therefore to the lodging of the Tribune of soldiers Pechman, with whom the Consuls invited by him were supping, the Magistrate wishes to repress force by force: the Lord Abbot returned, when he narrated the outcome, the Consuls moved by the indignity of the matter, soon rushed forth thence; and at about an interval of an hour at the first hour of the night most lovingly asked the Lord Abbot, that he would not be reluctant to visit them as soon as possible: that it concerned, lest such great rashness of unknown men within the walls, in the middle of the city, should go unpunished. The Lord Abbot went, accompanied by several; and visited them. Soon the Consuls again execrated the deed; showed, that it most grievously displeased them, that it had happened otherwise than they had hoped. That they would not permit, that thus as if spurned they should be a mockery to scoundrels. That it concerned for vindicating their authority that the work be repeated and accomplished. Let him only proceed: that they would confer those forces and help, by which thereafter no one should resist.

[16] But the Lord Abbot, because he perceived the matter to look toward sedition, The Abbot, fearing a sedition, nor did it seem to be a vain fear, lest many turbulent men running together, the Magistrate standing on the opposite side, it should come to blood and slaughter; judged that all things should be deferred to the following day. That it seemed less worthy of the Emperor's authority, that as if by stealth, and only by the benefit of darkness, his most honest will should be satisfied. That he desired therefore, that they should openly prove their reverence toward the Emperor, and with the knowledge and assent of more of their own decree it. The counsel pleased at once. And indeed the first of the Consuls with great affection of reverence asked the Lord Abbot, to be willing to stay a little, and to bear patiently the delay of the time, as much as of the night, into the coming morning, was left: that as soon as it had dawned, he would gather the votes of all, who held the Magistracy. The day having risen, a new Delegate from the Administrator came into the Hall; and redoubled with a loud voice the same attestation of his Prince. that the matter be proposed to the Hundred-men of the people. But the Senate, thinking the people not enough to be trusted; especially because now the murmur of certain ones had begun to be heard; toward noon at last determined, that nothing should be decreed before the following day; on which both the votes of the Hundred-men, who represent the multitude and pronounce for it, might be heard. Which matter being announced to the Lord Abbot and the Tribune Pechman, they at that same moment determined to depart from the city; the Noble man Lord Henry Mengersem being left in it, who should await the outcome of the matter; about to report to them what had happened.

CHAPTER III.

The obstinacy of the citizens being overcome, the Abbot returns a third time, and renders them secure about the Imperial clemency.

[17] And so the day before the Kalends of April departing into the town of Calbe, where the Count of Schlick had his quarters, The Abbot having departed from the city they set out. About three hundred sent by the enemy had occupied the suburb through which our men had to pass; who should attack and slay those going out: but they from fear of the cuirassiers, who to the number of a hundred surrounded our men, dared nothing. A great multitude of citizens, conscious of the ambush, had poured out for the spectacle: in the city the matter seemed next to a tumult. On the third day thence, which was the day after the Kalends of April, letters to the Lord Abbot come from the above-named Lord Mengersem, in which, what meanwhile in the city is done, or was done, he announces. That the day before the Hundred-men had not come together: the cause, the monastery occupied by forty horsemen of the Administrator and the Prefect of the squadron: that they however toward evening being ordered to depart by the Magistrate, had again deserted the place. he understands the Hundred-men had not assembled, That now in the Hall in a great Assembly the matter was treated: with what outcome, he would announce as soon as possible. Moreover, that vehement letters to the Senate from the Administrator had come; that he was drawing the minds of the people to himself; this effort being greatly aided by those who preach. Of that number on this very day a certain one, abusing a sentence from the history of the Lord's Passion, had insulted the Magistrate to the reproach of the Emperor. The sentence was: If you dismiss this man, you will not be a friend of the Emperor. O wicked mouth, and that the matter looked toward sedition: and to be pelted with the hail of St. Stephen! So to them into Tiberius Ferdinand is turned; into Pilate, the next Magistrate: so we, that Christ be slain, we seek; because we desire Christ's friend to be honored. But let us proceed.

[18] The Lord Abbot immediately answered; that it did not so grieve him, and so he admonishes the Tribune left there, that the matter for the wish of the most holy Emperor and his own had not succeeded, as that to that Lord Mengersem himself so great industry, zeal, effort, fidelity in this business had perished; nor without evident danger to stick there longer now: that for himself indeed at this time it was determined altogether to desist. That he believed, it did not yet please the man of God, that his bones should change that couch, although more neglected, for a more honorable one: that there remained whole for the future the hope: that what is deferred, is not taken away. That he asked, that he would not be willing to make the loss of one word more hereafter about this matter, and would snatch himself from danger as soon as possible: that it least pleased the Emperor, that with the crisis of many and perhaps even of some public tumult, that he himself withdraw from danger. he himself should pursue this most pious desire of his: that he would reserve the zeal and best affection of the most ample and most prudent Senate to himself for more convenient times: that he asked therefore, that without the expectation of greater danger, he should depart from the city: that no days would ever induce in him oblivion of the fidelity and industry expended by him: but in every way, place and time he would be ready in turn to obey; and that he would demonstrate it rather by deed, than by talents of words, wherever he could. And so the day before Palm Sunday, The Abbot about to return to Praguewhich fell on the fourth day of April, the Lord Abbot took the journey home. The same day he came to Halle: thence on the third day after to Leipzig at noon. Hence after noon he proceeded four miles. The next day, when now a day's journey was distant from Komotau, a Bohemian town, there came to him one sent by the often-mentioned Lord Aldringer the Commissary, a certain Noble man, who should recall him. He the letters from that one being rendered; by much persuading at last brought it about, that he returned.

[19] The chief cause of the return was the promise of the people of Magdeburg, by which they pledged to represent the sacred Relics of St. Norbert, by the good pleasure of his Imperial Majesty, the Magistrate recalls him. to the hands of the Lord Abbot. There was added the danger, lest meanwhile they be altogether taken away, which had already even been attempted, and by clandestine machination hands had begun to be moved to the sepulcher. Which matter however being maturely composed, Lord Henry Mengersem obtained from the Senate; that the nefarious men be excluded from the temple, and its doors sealed with a public seal and besides observed by a good and vigilant guard. The instrument of public faith made thereupon, for removing all suspicion was offered to the Lord Abbot, after the third time he came to Magdeburg, by the Senate itself. Returned for these causes into the camp the Lord Abbot, found all things other, than he had hoped: the condition of the public affair in the city changed. The cause of the change, that spurious and doomed head, Mansfeld: Meanwhile Mansfeld is present armed: who both threatened hostile things, and made bold by certain light successes, insulted: the approaches too to the city all, his soldiery by occupying had closed. Now to the Senate again the Commissary had written, demanding, that at last they should determine what they would do. The Lord Abbot too, as he came into the camp, himself too wrote to the Senate, which obstructing, the Abbot returns home frustrated of hope. and others. But, because the roads were held by the enemy, nothing then indeed could be answered by these, or, what was answered, could arrive. And so while, that Spurious one assailing certain quarters of our men, and other enemies elsewhere, wantoning rather for the sake of some games, than successes, no hope at that time seemed remaining; the Lord Abbot broken by weariness, on the very solemn day of Easter, after the midday meal having set out to the Count of Schlick, determined and began to return home. From him to Halle the next day: and thence further by great journeys from Dresden to our Doxan, and soon to Prague, he came.

[20] At home our Lord Abbot stayed three weeks, that the solicitous Pastor might consider the face of his flock; soon about to set out to Vienna to the Emperor, and to set forth in person in order the outcome of his journey and labors. But pleasantly both to him and to us it happened in these days, The Mansfeldians being slaughtered, that the slaughter of the Mansfeld troops, assailing the bulwark placed on the Elbe at Dessau-bridge, and a notable victory of our men was announced. A message the more acceptable, because it was established that the victory was imputed especially to the virtue and industry of those, whom of our business we held the best both workers and patrons, namely the Count of Schlick and the Commissary Aldringer; of whom this one with fiduciary power presided over the town and the guard of the bridge, and most bravely defended the very bulwark with a firm work of great mass and art, against the enemy, now in a second siege attempting the place. The Lord Abbot first in this city was made conscious of the most beautiful matter in our very temple. For there, he who was sent from the camp to announce it to the Emperor, turning aside from the way nearest to the monastery, met him, and brought from the Commissary the office of salutation, and at the same time the message of the happy battle. Soon full of joy the Lord Abbot, the Abbot again full of new hope, to us, standing in the choir and at the same time chanting, burst forth; about to precent the Eucharistic Canticle to God, with no less clamor of heart than of mouth. And so joyful to the Giver, as the Lord of all, and of this good too, giving thanks, thundering rather than sounding, we exulted that the penalty was quickly being paid to us by the perfidious scoundrel: for he owed it, the recent intercessor and delayer of our hope. That joy by the Lord Abbot with us at home being foretasted, not long after he set out. Coming to him the Emperor benignly received and heard; and with other letters again copiously, to the Commissary, to the Count of Schlick, to the Tribune Pechman, to the Senate, to the Metropolitan College of Magdeburg, followed it up.

[21] Among these, the Lord Abbot having returned home from Vienna, both the Count of Schlick, by letters received from the camp, and the Commissary by frequent letters, what was being done, what ought to be done, what was to be hoped, most diligently showed. It was brought about by their indefatigable diligence, by their piety toward God and our most holy Father, by their love toward our Lord Abbot, by their benevolence toward us, that the people of Magdeburg at last assigned all their help and labor. Let only the Lord Abbot return; and the desired treasure as he wished take up, and make of his own right. And so these things being reported through those most friendly men, he returns there in haste: about repeating the journey there seriously he began to think. They for this reason too admonished that haste should be made; because it appeared, that it would shortly come about, that all the Emperor's soldiery would be led out of that Saxony, and would pursue the enemy hostilely invading the Silesians with troops and forces somewhat restored from the recent slaughter at the bridge. Which if it should happen, that there was no remaining hope of accomplishing the holy matter among those; who even now surrounded by our troops, yet to our wishes had shown themselves so either hard or slow. On the 9th of the Kalends of August the Lord Abbot, as if a journey instituted elsewhere, (it concerned, July 23: to arrive there secretly) from Prague to Doxan before mentioned, the most chastened monastery of Nuns of the Order and right properly our own, with a few departed. Thence the most Reverend man Lord Crispin Provost there being received into the company of his journey, care, and work, further by just journeys into Saxony he proceeded. When they had come into it, new difficulties again began to be objected by the people of Magdeburg; and other causes of delays produced one from another.

[22] We suspect, either the forces of the Dane not yet broken to have held them wavering: for that one prevailing, reproach and insult; but the citizens again shuffling, nay something graver to be feared from the victor as an evil, could not unjustly seem; if, the Administrator protesting, who arrogated to himself a right (namely the Bishop), they should have dismissed the Relics to the Papists about to abuse them to impiety: or from fear of disturbances by the people, fanned by the fan of the Preachers, to have stuck doubtful. Perhaps that too made some slower, that a whisper from the mouth of many, as to the weak or ill-conscienced there is no end of suspecting, was hissed about; that the Emperor so insistently sought those Relics, that he might hold the city, as stripped of its protection, more liable, and might more freely either press or oppress it: for as long as the beloved Relics were in it; there was fear, lest the besieged should decree something more base about them, and disperse them. But they did not see that by that reasoning the bones of St. Maurice too, so great a Martyr, ought to be sought back and taken away: for of him the patronage was to those citizens both most ancient and equally most holy. Then, if by the presence of those bones they can believe themselves safer, why do we stupidly blame them in venerating them? That the Emperor certainly, a most sincere Prince, cooked in his mind any harder counsel against them, is so false; that he even most severely commanded his own, not to irritate them; and greatly wished it to be guarded against, lest any necessity of decreeing something graver against a people of doubtful faith should be imposed on him. But great praise the Senate deserved; by whose both industry, and moderation and patience the multitude, much inclining toward the faction of the rebels, was wisely restrained, lest at last it should burst forth: for the Theologians there about their fifth Gospel strove to show, that what is the Emperor's, is not to be given to the Emperor.

[23] However it be, when they scourged the patience of the Lord Abbot with new weariness of delays, to him quickly fraud, he withdraws empty. or what was like fraud, gave a hint. And so lest they should make a longer game of him, he determined quickly to return whence he had come: no little also the danger of contagion driving him thence, which creeping far and wide raged vehemently there in those places. Fourteen days' delay therefore being dissemblingly suffered, with the above-mentioned Lord Provost he repeated Bohemia; and returned home; with less hope and spirit indeed, than when from the former expedition he had returned: for a rumor had been scattered, of the broken sepulcher and the moved Relics: which wickedness especially the Lord Abbot had always feared, lest most wicked men should vitiate the best matter. Wherefore so disposed in mind he was for all those journeys there; that if by the least conjecture he should detect the monument to have been in some way unsealed, he would not take thence even a little dust (although a supply of the whole should be made). For what with things uncertain to us; and about which the enemies, who were well conscious of having been vitiated by themselves, might mock those venerating? That Father of ours therefore was unwilling to come to his sons unless thrice invited. For whoever invited to a banquet when he has made delay, is summoned again and again, understands himself to come the more pleasing a guest, the more often he is called. Mothers love more tenderly the infants whom they bear more slowly and with more difficulty. A huge tree is felled by no first blow. Difficult are the things which are beautiful: dear, the things which are difficult. The cultivator and friend of the Trinity was to be conciliated by triple vows, by a third journey, by a third labor; to be bound by a threefold cord, and so to be drawn to the loving by one loving.

[24] The people of Magdeburg wished to seem to grieve, about so unexpected a departure of the Lord Abbot to them, and complained. And so it came about thereafter, that now of their own accord they themselves came, and begged the return of the Lord Abbot. Then indeed more strongly and more sincerely, when the battle being fought by the Dane unhappily, both confidence to the obedient and terror to the refractory or to those despising the Emperor was increased:

for more often this very year by the singular favor of those above, we had it happy, both publicly and privately. Two huge victories, The Dane being conquered by the Imperialists the one succeeding the other at an interval of a few months, blessed the public affair; ours, those sacred Relics obtained toward the end of the year, and made of our right: by the common joy a prelude was so often and so beautifully played to our own proper joy. The Dane certainly in a battle memorable to all posterity Tilly (a present-day miracle, in so long-lasting a warfare, with so ample a command, a constantly pious and chaste Leader) cast to the ground. He could have been wholly subdued this year. O! of how much it is, to have one who leads! but this is the nature of Divine patience, judging by parts (as the Wise man speaks) those who err, the citizens lay aside their obstinacy, that place may be given to penance. For He was not powerless (as the same says) by war on the spot to subject the impious to the just; or by savage beasts, or by a hard word to exterminate them all at once. From that slaughter of the Dane the people of Magdeburg altogether to the will of the Emperor, as to the Relics, and as soon as possible to obey, took into their mind. And so by frequent letters both to the Commissary and to others the chief men of the Senate dealt begging, that the Lord Abbot should return whenever, in whatever way: that there would be neither delay, nor obstacle; but that what was asked for the Emperor, he should receive.

[25] The Commissary made more moved by their very recent shuffling, gave indications of an offended mind both by words and by the deed itself. It concerned them, to pacify it. For of the Imperial troops, which had been ordered to remain in Saxony, and of their own accord they offer what they had been asked, the rest pursuing the enemy, he himself with vicarious supreme power presided: and the provision to be brought into the city, yet for other just causes, he prohibited. For pacifying him there seemed opportune the Most Venerable Man Lord Martin Stricer, Doctor of Sacred Theology, a Priest of Hildesheim Canon of the title of the Holy Cross, today by Apostolic mission the Apostle of the Saxons, a most pure soul, and by the grace of his morals most acceptable even to those alien from the faith. He had for some time hitherto lived at Magdeburg, in the monastery of St. Agnes of the Virgins there; asked by them, that to them, the Provost having lately died, he would be willing for a while to be as Provost. Lord Martin, because they perceived him to be dear to the Commissary and in esteem with the people of Magdeburg, several approach, often beg, that he go into the midst, and reconcile to them the Lords Commissary and Abbot: that the sacred Relics could be taken up at any hour: that they would undertake and perform this. To this they give their right hands; redouble words to make faith. a mediator being interposed. He therefore gladly came into the midst; about to serve by one and the same work the citizens, us, the Commissary, the Lord Abbot, the Emperor, St. Norbert, and so even the glory of God Himself. At once what had been determined by the Senate, he writes to the Lord Abbot; asks, that again, and that without delay, he return; offers his help copiously: if the Lord Abbot, twice having undertaken so great a journey in vain, be averse from a third, or impeded by another cause; let him send another, or even commit to him what should be done: that he refused no trouble, labor, danger, but that an end be at last imposed on the most holy work.

So great a labor it was to take up the sacred Spoils of Norbert, and bring them newly to the Bohemian land, A protection of ours to be established on the summit of the mount.

[26] The Lord Abbot, who weary of labors, expenses, dangers, with no recompense of his labor yet for the approaches; and fearing fraud to be in the Relics, had now begun to turn his mind from the most beautiful matter, and to dismiss hope; until perhaps God Himself should show His will about this in whatever way, and attest the sincerity of the Relics; when unexpectedly, both that the Relics remained untouched by the hands of those profane men, and that the matter was at heart to the people of Magdeburg, he certainly learned; This being heard he returns a third time into Saxony, the Abbot, again, that is a third time, determined to set out; by this one journey about to bring back the reward of three at once. Diligently therefore the Divine power being solicited, and the success commended by the prayers of his own, on the 8th of the Kalends of December he departed to Doxan, thence the Most Reverend Man Lord Crispin Fuck, before honorably mentioned by us, the Provost of that monastery, most dear to him, into the company of labors again and dangers and of the joy now somewhat more certainly hoped, receiving, to Leitmeritz, a frontier town of Bohemia overhanging the Elbe to the North, proceeded. Hence not knowing, in what place especially he should find the Commissary, to Halle (of which city the citadel the Most Noble and most brave Man Lord Rudolf Sbrajavacca a Centurion, with an Imperial garrison and command held) straight he hastened: from him to hear where he could find the Commissary, and to him safely by a short cut arrive. As he came to Halle, the next day immediately by the Prefect of the citadel to the Commissary at Stassfurt, by the affection of piety he was led. Coming with great humanity Lord Aldringer, and with the Prefect of the citadel of Halle a man no less excellent than most brave, received him; desiring to pour himself wholly into obedience to him. But because the troops committed to him, intent on a certain expedition, he was watching, together to Magdeburg he could not go: nor did it seem necessary, the authority even of the absent one being as effectual.

[27] honorably received at Magdeburg, The Lord Abbot therefore being led to the first milestone from the city, and to him in his place Lord Sbrajavacca being assigned for obedience, there he stayed for a while; until the Senators summoned from Magdeburg, and admonished of their duty toward the Emperor, and of the faith given, the errors or faults of former times, their zeal being transferred to the obedience and cult of the Emperor, at present should wash away; and of that matter, the supply being made to the Emperor through the hand of the Lord Abbot, should give testimony, by a congruous speech he exhorted. The Senators promised that all things would have a success according to their wish: and to the Abbot for making faith both of their diligence, and of the integrity and sincerity of the sacred Relics, the instrument of public faith they presented. The Lord Abbot therefore departing from the Commissary, and entering the city with him late, to the house of a certain chief Senator, assigned for a lodging by public obedience, they accompanied him. All things then being prepared, and matters so, he goes on the 3rd of December to the monastery of St. Mary, that no disturbances could intervene to accomplishing the business in full, being composed; on the next day, which was the third of December, in the morning about the eighth hour, the Senate being summoned two sent from their College; who without noise, the servants following at a distance and apart, to the monastery of St. Mary, in the old city situated nearest to the Metropolitan edifice, led the Lords Abbot, Provost, Stricer the Prefect of the citadel of Halle. Fifteen musketeer soldiers had been disposed, who should watch the entrance of the monastery, and perhaps drive off those running up from the zeal of curiosity.

[28] All having entered the monastery together those two men of the senatorial order, with the Portionists of the place or conventuals apart, our men in another chamber awaiting the outcome, dealt, where the Conventuals solicitously excusing the past, the conversation being protracted to about the tenth hour. After which by them the Lord Abbot, not without much delivering of honor, that to the same place he himself with his own would deign to come, was asked. These having entered, and now sitting down, the Oeconomus of the monastery (whom they call Provisor, retaining still the name which they received from us) obtaining the second place from the Provost (who then thence on account of the chalices and other precious furniture of the temple unfaithfully sold off was by the decree of the Administrator excluded); and the rest with him as if Conventuals, through an advocate called for this at the beginning excused themselves; rejected the insolences of former times upon certain of their men, a little before dead; speciously attested, that they never wished to commit anything, by which to the most sacred Emperor they should seem less prepared to obey; begged, if in anything perhaps the Emperor had been offended, that the Lord Abbot would not find it grievous to go into the midst and deprecate; that they prohibited nothing, but that the desire of his most clement Majesty be satisfied.

[29] The Lord Abbot answered, what was fitting to answer: that the Emperor indeed by right he gives hope of Imperial indulgence, was angry at them on account of the impudent and stupid recent insolence of certain ones; and graver things, by which he might vindicate his authority and promote the success of the desired matter, could have determined: that he had long hands, which the outcomes of these times taught enough; so that scarcely could any rash man digest an injury to him: yet that he hoped, when their zeal turned to better by his report the best Emperor should learn, that he would be easy to pardon, nor would think anything harder against them. Let them be of good cheer: that he would labor, that to the advantage of the monastery more things be conferred by the Emperor. They thanks being vehemently given, began further to ask, that this desired Translation of their Founder might not procure prejudice to their first foundation and most ancient privileges. It was answered; that it would come about, that the Most Great Emperor even by the faith of his hand and seal would provide, and of protection against the Administrator that nothing should be taken from the first foundation and most ancient privileges by this deed. That this was not the Emperor's mind: let them only believe, all suspicions whatever (which they could not but rashly take up) being far rejected; and commit themselves to the best, most pious, most upright Prince. At length they asked, also against the threats and force of the Administrator to be made safe by the patronage of the Emperor: that he was denouncing to them snares and gallows; if they dismissed the Relics, which are asked. The Lord Abbot answered that the Emperor was more powerful and more holy, than that men, obedient and compliant to him, on account of this very thing he would suffer to be oppressed by rebels: and that he would not wish to suffer it, because he is most powerful; nor ought, because he is most holy. Let them doubt nothing; let them fear nothing. That the Most Ample Senate of the City meanwhile, while it is referred to the Emperor, would be a help against the wraths and machinations of the one threatening.

CHAPTER IV.

On the 3rd of December the body sought and taken out of the tomb, and carried to Doxan near Prague.

[30] The Lord Abbot, having now received enough of their assent to what he wished, The Abbot having adjured the Conventuals, began in turn with most grave words to protest to them; if they acted with guile, if fraud were in the Relics; that they would not bear it unpunished, if with such great malice they mocked the supreme power under heaven: let them see lest by accumulated crime they accumulate the weight of a graver and more hastened vengeance to themselves. That he had heard by a doubtful rumor, nor sufficiently stable, nay that they themselves on former days, by a public writing to the Senate had reported; that not many years before the most holy, and so by the Emperor sought Relics had migrated elsewhere; nor at present was it established, whither they had migrated. And so, whether some years ago, or in these last days the sepulcher being violated; whether by them, or by others; whether they themselves acting, or at least conscious; the sacred bones being moved from the place, that they should indicate, if the Relics were in any way violated, and translated elsewhere, let them candidly and without disguise declare; and let them not wish to make a game of him and his companions, present with such great authority, and turn it into a fable; an injury about to pass over upon the Emperor himself most glorious, most invincible, and so often triumphing over so many of his enemies. Let them rather faithfully bring forth whatever lies hidden: that he with equal faith would report to the Emperor. They astonished a little, first excused themselves, that they never knowingly or willingly had offended against the Emperor, always tenacious of a most submissive mind toward him; nor would they commit hereafter, that they be convicted of willing otherwise. and they denying it, About the sacred bones removed they said they had heard from their elders narrating, yet with no sure order of the deed done. In the last days and, from the time that they themselves had occupied the place, no

force had come to the sepulcher, nor an atom been taken from the sacred spoils: nor did they believe, that anything more had been done by their Predecessors. Let them only try, and proceed to the work.

[31] These things being thus on both sides spoken, about noon of the day by all together it was gone into the temple. They were, the Lord Abbot, the Lord Provost, Lord Stricer, it is gone to the tomb. Lord Sbrajavacca, the two Senators, the inhabitants of the edifice, the advocate, the servants of our men to the number of eight; some masons, called for machinating the work. The sepulcher was under the altar of the title of the Holy Cross, which, according to the things we set forth before, at the entrance of the sanctuary or choir, more or less eight steps higher than the rest of the temple, between the twin stairs on either side, by which it is approached, stands: yet in such a way, that the lower part of the body being extended under the choir, the altar embraced the head and breast. A Cross of huge mass of material, as is wont in the basilicas of Catholics, placed under the altar of the Holy Cross: let down from the topmost vault, and balanced by an iron chain hung in the middle. The lowest part of that Cross reached to the very sepulcher, as a tree germinating from the mouth of the holy man: for it overhung perpendicularly the sepulcher, where the head was placed, from above. A crypt sustains the choir, into which (as we have already said) nearest under the pavement of the choir the sarcophagus, from head to foot ran out. Having entered it, the brickwork being immediately cast aside, which seemed to stand in the way, with great mass and spirit they gaped after digging out the treasure. in which indeed a hole was found,

[32] When it was come nearest to the monument, a hole made in its outermost and contiguous-to-the-vault part, through which a human hand could be inserted and put in, was detected. A proof of the sacrilege; of which we made mention above, avenged with great harm to the daring one. This being beheld the Lord Abbot vehemently shuddered, and began to grieve not a little; fearing that by the wickedness of a wicked fraud the inestimable treasure had been carried off thence: not that by that so narrow an approach so great a mass of the body could be taken out enough; but, because it had been attempted there, a suspicion was born that it had perhaps been accomplished by another part. Certainly the Lord Abbot confessed that he so collapsed in mind at once at this spectacle, that it was scarcely permitted now to press on with the work further. Yet collecting himself a little and recovering his spirit, a lamp being fixed to the top of a rod and let in through the hole, but none, apt to produce suspicion. he wished to examine, whether the Relics were present, or cohered: certain to take nothing of them, where the slightest traces of fraud should be noted. The eye being applied diligently, what was seen, could not be discerned, except that the Lord Abbot (doubtful by what splendor deceived) believed that in a leaden case within, or at least covered with white plates, the spoils of our Most Blessed Father were contained: and this very thing he whispered into the ears of the Lord Provost. But after it was noticed, that the monument was situated higher, than that conveniently and without danger of disturbing the sacred Relics, so great a mass of weight could be let down (for two huge stones, as will soon appear, compacted with an unconquered solder, clung to the vault of the crypt as if engrafted) it seemed, that they ought to attack the matter by another way.

[33] From the crypt therefore, to which likewise some steps had to be descended, going out; they ascended the choir by the stairs, which we mentioned. There the pavement behind the altar of the Holy Cross being torn up, the extreme part of the monument appeared: of which part now estimating the very remainder, which did not appear, they noticed; that unless the altar of the Holy Cross were for a while torn down, the venerable Spoils could not decently and safely enough be obtained. The stone of our altar therefore they rolled down. Then the very as it were trunk of the altar, a mass of cement, on which the stone had rested, they cast aside. That mass to have never hitherto been moved, the hardness and solidity of the lime, with which the cement so bound clung to itself, that it seemed impenetrable, and two great stones to be torn apart with difficult work; made a sure indication. There at last the desired matter was beheld nearer; the sarcophagus itself, however great it was. That two stones, as we began to say, of huge mass, the one resting on the other, made up. Each of most solid nature; four ells long; mutually cohering most deeply by the bond of a firm work: for by iron, as is wont, great clasps, put into the edges of both on either side in more than one place, the lead poured in had made the work indissoluble: so that by altogether the greatest force, and long effort, scarcely at last was the upper stone torn from the lower. which being done there appeared between them the sacred body, These bonds being now loosened, it was a work of more difficult labor to remove the one placed above from the one placed below, the Relics being whole. And that too, while some from above from the choir push it forth with levers, others below draw it with ropes, was at last effected.

A very great matter accomplished. The house lies open, host of the holy Body, and the couch closed now through so many ages, Him whom it held a sun under a long night, to be seen It exhibits, and offers to eyes joyfully weeping.

For this is to be sung, not spoken, so great is our joy. Thus to the rejoicing it is solemn.

[34] But now let us say the rest: and one by one the disposition of the sacred bones, retaining its first figure, the manner, the position, as far as we can in words, let us represent. For thus more amply faith will be made about the integrity and sincerity of the Relics, to those understanding of what kind they were found, with such a great throng of the greatest witnesses standing around. They lay in the lower stone, which we have often mentioned, cut out to the figure and capacity of a human body, deeply laid; the whole frame of the bones, cohering each in its own place and order, still the brow somewhat sweating; whole and unmoved: which however, when they began to be moved, the tendons being consumed by age, immediately fell apart. The measure of the stature, how great it had been to the holy man, the position of the body extended beyond the common length declared. The brow of the sacred head as it were sweated with some drops, limpid and altogether most pure: whether by the nature of the place, or from another hidden cause; recent likewise, or formerly pressed out or collected; uncertain. That it ought not to be referred to the nature of the place, the head whole, the so tightly closed stones, and themselves dry on every side, and not a little distant from the earth, persuade. Whatever it was either of portent, or of chance, we do not inquire further. The Lord Abbot fallen on his knees, with reverence touched the sacred head with his finger: and immediately the lower jaw, fallen from the upper, deserted the order and place which it held. In each, their teeth were still all to one, in a most beautiful and very continuous series. Whence the appearance of the living one, how comely it had been; and the constitution too and age we estimate not improbably.

[35] The head was wrapped with the Humeral, as we call it: whose material, namely linen (as also of the Alb itself and the rest of the inner garment), had wasted away with age, and wrapped, and at the first touch had flowed apart as if into the thin webs of spiders. Yet the borders, which had adorned the highest edges of the Humeral and of the sleeves of the Alb, woven of gold thread of dense and beautiful work, had felt nothing yet of age, still surrounding the brow and the hands. The brain too, but juiceless, was under the cranium: and still here and there the skin remained to be seen. The rest of the sacred body, from the shoulders even to the heels, a Cyclas, or pluvial, as they call it, a Pall, in material silk; in color (which the years, scarcely that it could be discerned, had taken away) purple; in texture flowery; clasped by three of bronze elaborate pins, gemmed above, at the top, bottom, middle, clothed with a Pluvial, it covered. Those clasps were believed to be silver, and at first only two; until afterward with greater leisure an examination being made, both that they were bronze and three, was detected. Of the Pall, which we call Pontifical, placed besides over the cyclas at the shoulders and breast, only the little crosses, with which it is wont to be marked, remained whole: likewise two little leaden plates, sewn to its extreme little tongues on either side, for making weight. Near the feet was wood, divided into two parts. The cyclas, which we mentioned, of which the greatest part had kept its integrity, being unclasped; the hands appeared, Stole, Maniple, and Ring. composed crosswise in the manner of a cross. The Stole too and the Maniple, sacred garments, both beyond the usual long and woven with gold. A ring finally of gold, of bare work, set with a sapphire at the bezel, was found. It to the Lord Abbot, searching by chance within and inserting his hand, fell of its own accord and beyond expectation onto the very middle finger: which some of our men took for an omen (such as are omens to Christians).

[36] Now let us relate the order and manner, in which the most noble treasure was taken out and collected by those three holy men. The Lord Abbot being prostrate at the head of the sarcophagus, the Lord Provost at the lowest part; Lord Stricer, in the middle between both, leaned on a most clean (lest anything should fall out) linen cloth with bent knees; about to receive the things which should be handed by them, Then the head being taken out and to note each chief part, by inscribed and affixed slips; and so finally to wrap it in cloth. Near him Lord Sbrajavacca, Prefect of the citadel of Halle, for the cause of veneration and guard, with a most pious gesture knelt. The head was first taken out by the Lord Abbot. It he himself, and after him Lord Stricer, taken into the hands, with wonderful and sweet affection of piety when they kissed; the wondering ones who were present, the occupiers of the place, and others nearer now and more freely moved their eyes. As soon as the workmen had removed the upper stone, soon they, their nostrils accurately closed and their faces turned away, stood at a distance; fearing (as is wont) the stench and nausea in vain: who also, smiling at our men's such great reverence toward the bones of a dead man, impiously turned the business of piety into mockery. and then the other bones, Then the jaw being lifted by the same Lord Abbot, the remaining members thereafter, both at the same time by turns taking out, they offered to Lord Stricer to be marked (as we said) and wrapped. Now it was twilight, and the nature of the darker edifice had hastened the night; nor could the lamps set out show all things enough, to those searching out even the minutiae and atoms: since neither of the servants would they suffer anyone nearer or scarcely at all. No plate does a three-day faster wipe or lick so, as that most religious and greatest pair of Priests did that stone.

[37] and all decently wrapped At length the day turning into night, all things with such great care, diligence, caution, veneration to the least little dust collected, and decently wrapped, and laid together in clean linen, when they had enclosed them in the case; exulting, as victors exult at the captured prey; rejoicing, as those who rejoice in the harvest; with great clamor of heart (for the voices of the mouth, and the sounding jubilations, neither those ears there, nor the place, nor the time received) singing within the canticle of thanks to God, the giver of so great a gift, they departed. Having gone out from the temple, they are carried to the lodging of the Abbot: and all together coming into the heated room; the Lord Abbot gave thanks to the inhabitants of the most ample place, promising, that he would faithfully report to the Emperor, about their obedience to him, and their prompt consent to this matter. And so thence, they themselves praying all good things, surrounded by the city's escort, they departed. Returned to the house, which we have above commemorated to have been assigned to them by the Senate for a lodging, with religious cheerfulness they supped: for no care of a midday meal had solicited those intent on a work so desired, well fed meanwhile with mystical food.

rest received those wearied by the day's work. The next day, which was the day before the Nones of December, sacred to the memory of St. Barbara, who on the 4th of December bids farewell to the Senate, to those about to depart the Senate begged, that they would be willing to stay that day: that there remained things which they desired to treat privately in friendly conversation with the Lord Abbot. The Lord Abbot understanding that he could render no lesser obedience to men, who in so great a matter had so obeyed, assigned not the day itself, but the hours as much as was enough. There came therefore to him the Consul and two others, congratulating the success; and joyful that the will of the most great Emperor had at last happily been satisfied; sitting together they attested their most friendly affections, and at the last as public guests wished them to be free of all expenses.

[38] During the conversation one of them related to the Lord Abbot; and declares the sincere intention of the Catholics in these matters. that there were some of the citizens who said, that with no other counsel the Relics of so celebrated a man were desired and sought by our men, than that, the protection as it were being taken away, the city could more easily be pressed. He himself answered; that they were the inventions or most vain suspicions of idle men, and of those not understanding our affairs. That the Emperor, the Princes, and the Catholic People, and so even he himself, who in this business had labored with so great and so persistent labor, only by the love and reverence of the Saints, as friends of God powerful at His ears, were wont both to seek and to esteem Relics of this kind. That there was no fraud underneath here; no more malign counsel. To which he smiling said, that they were the talk of the common people, which must be indulged: and so he turned the discourse elsewhere. About the third hour after noon the Lord Abbot, giving thanks to the Consul and the Senators, most humane hosts, as much as he could by mouth, and praying well for all, said farewell: and so with his own and that treasure of his of ineffable price, much more glorious through him, than if he had stormed cities, subdued kingdoms, departed from the city. The two public men in the public name led him departing to the first milestone from the city: about to go further, and honorably led outside the city, unless the prayers of the Lord Abbot, more than enough of the office of humanity being shown, had compelled them to return. For he was unwilling, the night being now near, and having proceeded farther than where the suspicion of danger from the citizens could perhaps extend itself, that the best men be wearied. Late at night it was come to Stassfurt: to Halle the next day: in the citadel of which town, over which Lord Sbrajavacca presided, on the following day (it was that a Sunday) they solemnly gave thanks to God, the Eucharistic Sacrifice being offered at the sacred altars, that they had measured the journey, secure by God protecting, and by holy Norbert, glorious and joyful with so great a companion. Then to Doxan, the monastery of the Lord Provost most holy in discipline, on the 3rd of the Ides of December, they arrived.

[39] There received, according to the condition of the time and place, by the meeting of the Brothers and household going to meet them with torches and tapers, he arrives at Doxan with the body. and the singing of the eucharistic hymn, which the sacred Virgins with religious joy overflowing into tears could scarcely alternate, the bells consonant, they deposited the venerable Relics, well sealed, to the faithful guard of the handmaids of God; there to remain, until all things being prepared, which for the very triumph of the Translation, most solemnly to be instituted to Prague to our edifice, had been designated, further by public pomp and the company of all the orders of the kingdom, he deposits it there, until the solemn Translation is prepared. and finally by the august auspices and leadership of the most sacred Emperor, they should be carried. The next day immediately, hastening the journey our Most Reverend Father in Christ and Lord, Lord Gaspar of Questemberg, Abbot of the mount Sion in Strahow, etc. the author of so happy an expedition to be celebrated to eternal memory, and likewise the accomplisher of the laborious and great work, came to us his sons; with unusual joy, nay excessive, and which we could not contain, exulting. For a little before on the previous evening, first, what had been done, we had learned. On which evening likewise, the message being immediately received, we flew together to the temple, and jubilant offered the canticle, Te Deum, for the first giving of thanks to God, by a prolonged ringing of the bells attesting to the citizens too the new joy. But that in every way we may make the integrity and sincerity of the sacred Relics as attested as possible, we subjoin for a finish a public instrument, made at Magdeburg by public faith and authority on this very thing on December 10.

CHAPTER V.

The attestation of the people of Magdeburg upon the truth of the sacred body.

[40] In the name of the most sacred and undivided Trinity. Amen. Let it be plain to all, and through this public instrument be made known, that in the year from the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand six hundred and twenty-six, the ninth Indiction, with the most illustrious most powerful and most invincible Prince and Lord, Lord Ferdinand the Second of that name, In the year 1626 with Ferdinand II Emperor, by the favoring divine clemency elected Roman Emperor ever august, of Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia, etc. King, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, Brabant, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Luxembourg, Württemberg, Upper and Lower Silesia, etc. Prince of Swabia, Marquis of the Holy Roman Empire, of Burgau, Moravia, upper and lower Lusatia, Count of Habsburg, Tyrol, Pfirt, Kyburg, and Gorizia, etc. Landgrave of Alsace, Lord of the Slavonic March, of Portenau and of the Salt-works, etc. ruling, in the eighth year of the Roman, the ninth of the Hungarian, and the tenth of the Bohemian reigns of his sacred majesty, our most clement Lord, etc. When the most reverend Father in Christ and most illustrious Man Lord Gaspar of Questemberg, Abbot of Strahov and Siloë, of the Premonstratensian Order, throughout Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Abbot of Strahov with his Companions, etc. Visitor, Counselor of his Sacred Imperial Majesty; and the most reverend Lord Provost of the Monastery of the Virgins of Doxan, Lord Crispin Fuck; with the most illustrious and strenuous Lord John Aldringer, etc. Counselor of his Imperial Majesty, Colonel and Commissary General; and the most noble and strenuous man likewise Rudolf of Sbrajavacca, Captain of his Imperial Majesty and Castellan in the Citadel of St. Maurice of the city of Halle; on the second day of December, the things done thus far being set forth, new style, in the village of Lütgen-Ottersleben had been present, and being thence summoned in the name of the Senate of Magdeburg had come, the most prudent Men; Lord John Aleman Proconsul of the Tribe, and Lord Andrew Rhor Chamberlain; the most illustrious and strenuous man Lord John Aldringer, etc. began by the force of the commission delegated to him by the Most August Emperor Ferdinand II, in the presence of me the public and matriculated Notary, to repeat the things which hitherto by a long and manifold treaty between him and the Most Ample Senate of the City of Magdeburg had come about; that he might be made more certain of the success of affairs, lest anything be committed, which would redound to the prejudice of the best and greatest Emperor, or to the disparagement of his supreme authority.

[41] Namely whether the said Prelate sent for these successes, he asks whether all things are safe and certain for him in the city: the Most Reverend Gaspar of Questemberg, Abbot of Strahov with his own, could safely enter the city. Whether by the Magistrate it was provided with provident care about a lodging; whether there was fear of any danger. Whether with the Senate assisting and affording protection, without difficulty, they would give faith that the Relics, long hitherto desired, of the Most Blessed Patriarch of the Premonstratensians and onetime Archbishop of Magdeburg Lord Norbert could be lifted. To which Lord John Aleman answered: That for all things abundantly it was provided; that the Senate endeavored, that it should prove its faith and observance toward the most great Emperor in all things. That there was no danger: and about the lodging, where the one deputed about the Emperor should act as a private man, it was provided. That no one would be an impediment, but that the long desired Relics lifted from the sepulcher should be carried, wherever it should please the Most August Emperor: the deputies from the Senate answer, that they are safe: let them only follow them into the City intrepid. These and similar things being transacted, the most illustrious Lord John Aldringer, because he was watching the army committed to him on a certain expedition, bidding all farewell, went off on his journey. But the most reverend Lord Gaspar the aforesaid Abbot of Strahov, with Lord Crispin the aforementioned Provost of Doxan, and the most noble man Rudolf of Sbrajavacca, followed those sent ahead from Magdeburg; and at the fifth hour of the same day entered the house of Lord John Aleman, with one or another servant, dismissing the carriages and the rest of the company to the public inn.

[42] and they on the 3rd of December lead them to the monastery of Bl. Mary: The next day, which was the third of December, about the eighth hour before noon, again destined by the Most Ample Senate of Magdeburg to the Commissaries above mentioned, namely Lord Andrew Rhor and Lord Nicholas Genthe, both of the Senatorial Order, approached; who without noise should lead the often-mentioned Lords Commissaries, together with the most reverend Lord Martin Stricer Doctor of Sacred Theology, Canon of the Holy Cross of Hildesheim, and Knight of the Most Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, the servants apart and following from afar, to the monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the very city, where St. Norbert formerly Archbishop rested, and in it be present up to the end of the work. The Most Ample Senate had also with solicitous care appointed soldiers or musketeers, who should watch the doors of the monastery. As they entered, the said two men of the Commonwealth, apart, with those who inhabited the monastery (the Lords Commissaries meanwhile in another heated room awaiting the outcome) dealt; and the conversation being protracted up to the tenth, at length with delivering of honor asked the Conventuals, that the most illustrious Lords Commissaries would deign to enter. The Lords Commissaries therefore having entered and sitting down; the said men of the Commonwealth being present; the Provisor of the Place, whom they call the inspector of the Monastery, through an advocate John Rudorph received from elsewhere, said excuses, on account of the insolences of former times, referring the causes to those dead in the last days, with a specious protestation added, that they had never presumed to assent against the most sacred Emperor. They begged at last, that the Emperor perhaps offended, by the intervention of the most illustrious Lords, might be made propitious to them again; that they prohibited nothing, but that the will of his most clement Majesty be at last satisfied.

[43] The Most Reverend often-said Prelate, the Abbot of Strahov, answered; That his Majesty indeed by right, on account of the insolence of certain ones, and the indemnity of the agreement, and the impudent rashness, with which not long before they had broken out into the supreme injury of his Majesty, could be moved, and decree other things, by which he might vindicate his authority, and proceed in the successes of his will; but that he hoped, when their zeal turned to the better the Commissaries reporting he should learn, that he would approve better counsels according to the aforesaid affection of clemency. Thence they began to ask, that this desired translation might not prejudice their first foundation and most ancient privileges. To which the Most Reverend Prelate Abbot of Strahov subjoined, that he would obtain, that the Emperor by an impressed seal should provide, lest anything should be taken from their first foundation and most ancient privileges by this very thing. A third time they asked, that the Most August Emperor should expend his most clement patronage on them, against the Administrator of the Archbishopric, who under the penalty of hanging had prohibited, that they should allow the desired Relics to be transferred. To which the mentioned Bishop Abbot of Strahov: that the Emperor was more powerful, than that them on account of the obedience shown he would suffer to be trodden down: that they should doubt nothing whatever; let them more tranquil rest under the shadow of the great Emperor.

[44] And so their assent being had, the Most Reverend Abbot of Strahov began to protest, they are seriously admonished, not to conceal any fraud, if the malicious should of their own accord dispose anything to the contumely of the most great Emperor; let them beware, lest by multiplied crime they wish vengeance to be hastened. For that he had heard

by a doubtful rumor; but also that on former days they themselves by a public writing had attested, that not many years before the sacred Relics sought with such great vows had been translated elsewhere; and that about the place it was not established at present. Nor was there a doubt, but that on the last days they had variously tried to penetrate the approaches of the sepulcher. And so whether some years ago, or in the last days force being brought upon the venerable sepulcher, whether by themselves, or by others, whether with them as actors, or at least conscious, they had moved it from the place, or transferred it, let them candidly and without disguise declare the same, and let them not wish to prostitute as a fable to several those present with such great authority. That the most victorious Emperor would bear it most ill, if many men's labor being applied, with no fruit of the desire they should drag out the day. Let them at least declare clearly; that the present Commissaries would faithfully report about all things to the Emperor. They to these, that about the translated Bones of Lord Norbert, they had heard from their Elders narrating; yet with no sure order. In the last days, and from the time that they had occupied the Convent, no force was brought to the sepulcher, nor even a hair moved from the spoils of the sacred body; nor did they believe, that anything had been committed by their predecessors. Let them at least make a trial of the matter.

[45] It is gone to the church; These things having spoken, all entered the church about the time of noon, the most reverend and equally most religious man Lord Gaspar of Questemberg Abbot of Strahov, etc. with the abovesaid Lord Crispin Provost of the Monastery of Doxan, and Lord Martin Stricer, nay also the aforementioned Lord Rudolf of Sbrajavacca, etc. and the same two men of the Commonwealth, deputed by the Senate for this for assistance, nay also the inhabitants of the place, the servants likewise of the Lords Commissaries, of whom there were about eight, certain ones skilled in the mason's work being called. It was first attempted in various places, where the sepulcher could piously be broken through; but with no convenient success. The body of St. Norbert was laid up under the altar of the holy Cross, which from outside clings to the choir, now somewhat higher by some steps; yet in such a way, that the lower part of the body with the feet was extended into the choir, the head with the nobler part occupied the said altar. A Cross of huge mass made of wood hung from the vault of the temple, by an iron chain; whose base let down to the very place of the sepulcher perpendicularly, as if rested upon the head of St. Norbert. Under the choir was a crypt, which having entered with great force applied in various places, nor is the tomb uncovered except the altar being removed: they hastened to dig out the precious pearl, but with no fruit of the desire. At length they ascended the choir, and the pavement in the last part of it being lifted, they revealed the outermost part of the tomb: whence estimating the measure of the human body, it was easily detected, that the holy Body could not be lifted, unless the altar of the holy Cross were removed. Whose stone when they had lifted, with some part of the substructure base of the same, the whole sepulcher lay open.

[46] But the tomb was, not leaden, or wooden, but stone, which being all of stone, was opened with difficulty. of one stone, hard, solid, very great, having about four ells in length, cut out to the form and size of a human body; on which another stone of the same size had been placed: and each was most tightly bound by iron clamps with lead poured over. And so the iron clamps being first extracted, the upper stone with the work of several from the Choir pushing forth, but in the body of the Church ropes being applied drawing, at length they removed the upper stone; and the spoils of the blessed man appeared. The whole frame of the holy bones was still whole, and clung altogether in its order; which however, when they began to be moved, immediately fell apart. To the sacred head some drops as if of one sweating were present. But as soon as these lay open, Thus all the bones being beheld whole fallen on his knees the Most Reverend Bishop Abbot of Strahov, with reverence touched the sacred Head with his finger, and soon the chin fell. There were in both the head and the chin all the teeth. The head too was wrapped with the Humeral, whose material, as also of the Alb, and of the inner garment (except that the clasps or borders of the Humeral and of the Alb, heavy with gold, which surrounded the brow and the hands still whole and unharmed, remained) had so wasted away with age, that they clung as if at least the webs of spiders. Wherefore the Most Reverend Lord Abbot prostrate at the upper part of the sepulcher, and reverently received in linen, the most reverend Lord Provost of Doxan Crispin watching the lower part, collected the Relics of the said holy one of God with reverence, and to the most reverend man Lord Martin Stricer, who in the middle of both bent, upon the spread linen (at which for the cause of veneration and guard the often-said Lord Rudolf of Sbrajavacca, Captain of his Imperial Majesty, knelt) offered them into his hands; who slips being affixed to all the more principal parts, wrapped all things decently, as he could, with all the above-recounted standing around and looking on and the Witnesses named below.

[47] as also of the garments The Head, first lifted from the sarcophagus; then the chin; afterward the remaining members were brought forth by turns. The upper garment, which remains for the greatest part, was silk of a punic color, interspersed with gold threads in the manner of flowers or roses, which clothed the whole body with the arms from the shoulder to the soles; under this the hands transverse, in the manner of a Cross, were placed upon the breast. The same garment wrapped was connected by two silver pins, adorned in the upper part with gem-work; of which one the upper the most reverend Lord Gaspar of Questemberg Abbot, etc. the other the most reverend Lord Provost of Doxan loosened. Now it was twilight, and the rest of the ashes. and the condition of the darker temple had induced darkness. The Stole, Maniple, Pontifical Pall, for the greater part whole. A ring too of gold notable for a sapphire was found, which by a price paid the so-often mentioned Venerable Abbot redeemed. Soon the late night impending, the upper garment, together with the ashes and the relics of the sacred Body they wrapped; and to be placed in clean linen, they handed to Lord Martin Stricer. Then whatever remained, even the very smallest little dust, reverently collected, they carried off together. The elevation of the sacred Relics being performed, and the Lords now about to depart, the inhabitants of the monastery showed in little chests skillfully made, and placed in the upper part of the high altar, the Relics of various bodies, which the Lords Commissaries asked to be placed back again in their place.

[48] After these things having entered the heated room of the monastery, the inhabitants of the place being called together, the Most Religious Abbot of Strahov gave thanks, Hence the Abbot is led with his own to the lodging, and supper promising that he would report to the most clement Emperor, that with an altogether prompt consent they had agreed to the consummation of the work. Thence wishing well to themselves they departed, the escort of the watch surrounding those, who carried the found sacred treasure: and at length they return to the assigned lodging, namely the house of Lord Aleman; and supper being taken (for they had passed the whole day, overcome by the magnitude of desire, fasting) they gave their wearied limbs to rest. On the following day, which was the fourth of December, about to depart; the Senate of the City requiring the most illustrious Lords Commissaries, they stayed up to the time of Vespers. For about the time of the midday meal came the most learned and equally most prudent Man Lord John Dauth, Doctor of Law, ruling Consul of the City, a man abounding in many gifts of body and soul, with two other Consuls, Lord Martin Braunss, and Lord John Henry Walther Doctor of Law, the following day he is honorably dismissed, etc. who together with Lord John Aleman, congratulated the most illustrious Lords Commissaries, that to the wish and desire of the most great Emperor all things had succeeded. They then sat down, attesting most ample affections, and redeeming the expenses of the lodgings, the Lords delegates protesting in vain. About the third hour after noon the Most Reverend Bishop Abbot of Strahov wishing well to all, with the good God, accompanied by the aforetouched Lords departed, two men of the Commonwealth, by the command of the Senate, leading them outside the City for the space of almost one mile, Lord Andrew Rhor Chamberlain, and Lord Nicholas Klake under-Secretary: about to proceed further, unless they had yielded to the prayers of the Lords delegates.

[49] Upon all and each of which things, the aforesaid Most Reverend and most illustrious Man Lord Gaspar of Questemberg, Abbot of Strahov, and at his wish an instrument of the matter done is written. required and asked me the public and matriculated Notary undersigned, that these things being noted, I should make for him thence one or more, if there be need, public instruments: which by the reason of my office I judged should by no means be denied him. These things were done at Magdeburg, in the monastery of Bl. Mary the Virgin, under the year, indiction, reign of the Emperor, month, days and hours, as above; present there, besides those above named, the circumspect and honest men, Lord Nicholas Genthe, and Hans Miller, witnesses worthy of faith, specially called and asked to this Act. And I Andrew Rhor, citizen of Magdeburg, by the authority of the Holy Empire a Public and in the Imperial Chamber approved and matriculated Notary, because at the elevation of the aforesaid, at all other things and each, while they were thus as is set forth done and transacted, I was present together with the aforenamed Witnesses, and saw and heard all those things and each thus to be done, and took them into note; therefore this public instrument, written with my own hand, I thence made, published, and reduced into this authentic form. With my Sign and Seal, name and surname, my usual and customary, I signed it, and subscribed with my hand, in faith and testimony of all and each, specially asked and required.

CHAPTER VI.

St. Norbert ascribed to the Patrons of Bohemia. The Translation festively celebrated through eight days.

[50] Before the solemn Triumph of the Translation, the Most Noble Nobles of the Kingdom of Bohemia with the Most Illustrious Cardinal Archbishop of Prague, by prayers (no doubt by divine impulse) solicit, The Nobles of the Kingdom asking, that he would deign to number, to reckon St. Norbert given to them from heaven, among the other Patrons and Tutelary Saints of Bohemia; receiving a most happy omen, that with the new Saint all new prosperous and happy things would come to the Kingdom of Bohemia. To these just postulations of the Nobles the Most Illustrious Cardinal of his own accord assented, and for that matter had an Archiepiscopal Mandate printed and promulgated, which it has pleased to relate here word for word. Ernest by the grace of God and the Apostolic See Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church of Harrach, Archbishop of Prague, etc. To all who shall see or hear these presents, greeting. Since the Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Lords, Lieutenants of his Sacred Imperial Royal Majesty in the renowned Kingdom of Bohemia, the Archbishop of Prague Privy and other Counselors, as well as the Supreme Officials and Assessors of the Supreme Judgment of the Kingdom of Bohemia, through the Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Lord Jaroslav Borzita Count of the Holy Roman Empire of Martinic, of the Sacred Imperial Majesty's privy councils and chamber, supreme Chamberlain of the same Kingdom of Bohemia, and deputed to Us by the same Sacred Imperial Majesty in this same Kingdom, of the Lords Lieutenants and Supreme Officials, St. Norbert, whose body was soon to be brought, honorably and instantly from Us, on behalf and in the name of himself and of all the Optimates of the Kingdom present and absent; desire and require.

[51] That St. Norbert; the Founder of the sacred Premonstratensian Order; once Archbishop of Magdeburg; Primate of Germany; Apostle of the people of Antwerp, of the Saxons, and of the Slavs; so long before the conqueror of the Sacramentarian heresy; (whose most holy Relics by the singular benefit of God the Best and Greatest and of the Most Glorious Emperor Ferdinand II, ever August our King and most Clement Lord, assigned to our Bohemia as an incomparable treasure, we have determined to transfer a little after hither into the Metropolitan

city both of the Kingdom itself and of our Archdiocese) that this so great friend of God, I say, we should reckon, by our power and authority, in the number of the Heavenly Patrons or Tutelaries of Bohemia; and should order the same hereafter under this name and title to be honored, celebrated, and invoked by our whole Clergy and people; to so holy a desire and just requisition immediately, and with promptitude, and with zeal of mind toward the same most holy man, as great as is fitting, assenting; we reckon St. Norbert, now and hereafter, among the Patrons or Tutelaries of this renowned Kingdom, we hold him among them, honor, invoke him, and altogether wish, decree and command that he be equally reckoned, held, honored, invoked by the whole Clergy and people of our Archdiocese: in the year 1627. enjoining all and each of the Parish-priests of the same our Archdiocese, and of Preachers by whatever title, that this our will, decree, mandate, as soon as it can come to their hands, they recite for the assembly and divulge; exhorting besides seriously and rousing the faithful people, that the new so great guest and Tutelary of the Kingdom from heaven by piously and diligently celebrating and invoking, through the merits, suffrages, and sacred bones of the Man most powerful at the ears of God, they should hasten to conciliate the favor of the good Divinity, and to avert the scourges of divine wrath impending over their back. Given at Prague in Our Archiepiscopal Palace, in the year of salvation 1626 on the last day of April. Where certainly we can and ought deservedly to see, look up to, praise, and proclaim the wonderful providence of God, no less than His power, in promoting the honor of St. Norbert at this time.

[52] The Abbot of Strahov, The above-named Most Reverend Abbot of Strahov had invited, a man of lofty and heroic mind and born to the highest things, full of the zeal of God, the singular ornament of the White and Canonical Order, and even by this alone, through these labors, expenses and dangers of the translated Most Holy Father Norbert, by a work and triumph no less bold than glorious, worthy of eternal memory, to the future solemnity of the Translation all the white alumni of the whole Order by the following letters:

Most Reverend Lords, Venerable likewise and beloved Confraters and Brothers.

We perform what a little before we promised. We come now to invite your most reverend, venerable likewise and religious Dignities and Charities, to celebrate that day of the nuptials of our Lamb the Most Holy Father Norbert. For why should we not call him a Lamb, who when from a wild beast of the world he first became a lamb of Christ, wished to be clothed with a lamb? To the great day, by his circular letters to the whole Order, solemn, and very renowned, we, as we can, with what cry we can, call and invite you. Come and see the joy, of which you have heard. Come, and with us present rejoice with unspeakable joy. This is not our cry, but that of the very greatest and best Father and our most holy Patriarch Norbert. He calls you; his merits toward his own, the honor due to him from his own invites you. We indeed ask, but he demands. he invites all and each Who would grant us that into one place hither there flow together all, from the rising of the sun even to the setting, his sons! Let them come at least, when not all can, as many as can. Let the most glorious, and most pious Emperor ever August our most clement Lord see, let him see in person, to whom and how much he has done good. For also by that sun of ours that triumphal day will be irradiated.

[53] We have chosen the day next succeeding the Kalends of May, on which the same the IV Sunday after Easter falls, commonly called Cantate. Sing to the Lord a new song, because He has done wonderful things for us. Sing to the Lord a new song, His praise in the church of the Saints. That day is the same otherwise proper to the Chapter of our sacred Order; let only this once this Chapter be held to the Father, at the time at which it is wont to be held to the Mother. on the 2nd of May to the Translation. We wish, that who and how many are about to come, it may be permitted to learn in good time; that we may provide about a convenient lodging to be assigned to each; since the domestic walls are less ample for taking the multitude. May God glorious in His Saints ever bless your most reverend, venerable likewise and religious Dignities and Charities, and represent them to us here in the greatest number unharmed and joyful. At Prague in our Monastery of Strahov, the 13th of March, 1627. Summoned by these letters, prompt and eager very many from most ample Germany, through many inconveniences of journeys and dangers, hastened to Prague. From Belgium most noble Antwerp, Many come from Germany: to the Triumph of its Apostle, sent a legate; so also Westphalia, Swabia, Bavaria, and other places, especially the nearer ones, their own. And that they might more safely, especially from Moravia and those places, where the Imperial soldier and the enemy dwells, run together; the most invincible Emperor to his Tribunes, Prefects and Leaders of soldiers gave letters (as has been related), in which he seriously enjoined, that they should at this time severely restrain the Soldiery, lest the Premonstratensians, flowing together to the triumph of their Father, should suffer any injury; otherwise the deed would redound upon the head of the Leaders themselves. There came together therefore in such great number the white Canons, to so great a solemnity of the Father, that with the inhabitants of the monastery of Zion, the religious newcomers were seen in the procession beyond a hundred with beautiful whiteness. some too from remote Provinces:

[54] For carrying the sacred Relics of the Most Holy Father Norbert to Prague, the 1st of May which happened on the Kalends of May, the greatest apparatus was instituted, which it was beautiful to see. First of all on a most beautiful and on every side white carriage, to which six whitening horses were yoked, with the driver shining in snowy garb, the most holy Relics were placed, the body is led with beautiful order to Prague, and from the Doxan monastery of Virgins of the Premonstratensian Order splendidly carried to Prague; for leading which some squadrons of horsemen, adorned and instructed by the neighboring nobles, came together. All three cities of Prague too, each under a certain banner, instructed a band of about a hundred horsemen, and sent to meet the holy Relics, who should accompany them received from the rest to Prague even into the temple. After it was come to the Vienna gate, there is present the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Cardinal Archbishop, with a solemn throng of Religious and Clerics and the whole people; the new guest from heaven, and the chosen Tutelary and Patron of the renowned Kingdom of Bohemia, with a most sweet and most grave oration even to tears he salutes. Which being done, some strophes of the hymn of St. Norbert being sung, into a new chest thence, enclosed in a new chest, skillfully and preciously made of Indian wood reddish below and interspersed with black spots, and adorned with silver every way, the sacred Relics were deposited; and with a most solemn supplication the sacred burden, the Prelates of the Order carrying it on their shoulders, was carried into the church called Tyn. And behold at this very moment suddenly the sky, hitherto for some days assiduously rainy, began as it were to unfold itself, and to put on a serene face; which it also constantly kept up to the eighth day, that it might applaud the new triumph too, and it is placed in the church of Tyn, and by its serenity augment the solemnity. At the entrance of the temple, the horsemen of the three cities, the guns being discharged, with wonderful applause saluted and honored their new Saint. That night by all the Premonstratensians, who like also others had destined that day with fasting in honor of the holy Father, solemn Matins were sung in that church, and so that vigil received its end.

[55] On the 2nd of May the procession is arranged, The next day, namely the 2nd of May, well in the morning there came together in the greatest number, both Religious, and others, and again the Most Illustrious Cardinal himself and the chief Nobles of the Kingdom, for the sacred Relics of their new Patron with great joy, with the highest pomp of festivity, to be introduced into the church of Strahov, and to be placed in the prepared place. But the pomp of this triumph, both on this and on the eighth day, no one will easily explain, even one who was present in person; so great an apparatus of horsemen, so great a clangor of trumpeters from every side, so great a boom and terror of guns and of the greater cannon discharged from the bulwark to the Imperial citadel, so great a brilliance of the Nobles, so great a splendor of the whitening Premonstratensian Canons, so great a splendor of the assemblies of Religious and of the Clergy proceeding in beautiful order in the supplication, so great a running together of the people, so great finally a glory of the triumph, that you would believe a new Emperor fallen from heaven to be honored and received. Three triumphal arches, with their most learned symbols about St. Norbert, stood erected with the greatest labor and expense; in which partly a choir of musicians, partly youths instructed with the arms and shields of the Provinces, bearing the insignia of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which they consecrated and affixed to the Saint; partly others, adorned in the likeness of the Bohemian Patrons, and let down from on high in a certain cloud, saluted the new Saint, and received him into their number. But that sacred triumph was held in nearly this manner.

[56] On the 6th of the Nones of May, as above indicated, in the early morning about the sixth hour it was come together into the church of Tyn, from the church of Tyn, in which the day before the holy Relics had been left. There first with solemn rite and song sacrifice was made, a certain Premonstratensian Abbot performing the divine office. The Sacred things finished the Procession moved from the temple, in which there preceded the votive splendid and sumptuous banners of the Emperor, of the Kingdom of Bohemia, and of the Nobles, seventeen in number; each inscribed to God and to His great friend Norbert. There followed the Clerics of Prague, both regular and secular, proceeding each with a great and flaming taper; these followed the Premonstratensians, both inhabitants and newcomers; then the Canons of the Cathedral Chapter; then the holy bier of the Relics of St. Norbert, which first eight mitered Abbots went under, after as many Religious Premonstratensians, finally again Abbots. Next to these preceded the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Cardinal and Archbishop of Prague, bearing the sacred Head of the most holy Father Norbert enclosed in silver: then the Nobles of the Kingdom and of the City with white torches: finally an innumerable multitude of citizens, through the first arch, yet distinguished by their banners and those most excellent. Those having gone out from the church of Tyn a most broad courtyard received, which girt on the right by armed and cuirassed soldiery, resounded with drums and the sweet music of instruments of every kind. When it was come to the first triumphal arch with the Relics, the pomp stopped; and the Saint was received with a most sweet symphony of musicians, and saluted by the youths from the arch with an elegant oration.

[57] and the temple of the Society, The Procession then proceeded, and from the way turned aside into the temple of the Society of Jesus, which occurred: there the sacred burden being deposited a little while in the middle of the temple, Te Deum Laudamus was sung through with the festive voices of musicians. Thence from the old city into the lesser, through the oblong bridge, which joins the Moldava a most pleasant river, was the crossing. But scarcely had the sacred Relics, gone out from the Old-City, been beheld on the bridge, when immediately from the opposite citadel they were saluted with the festive crash of warlike cannon. The bridge itself broad and long made the pomp conspicuous, in whose middle stands the sign of Christ hanging from the Cross, at which the lover of the Cross Norbert delayed somewhat. The bridge on the other part Lesser-Prague receives,

[58] before which stood the third arch, As they then entered into the vestibule of the church, the third triumphal arch presented itself, so lofty that it looked down upon the very summit of the church, adorned with varied emblem and ingenuity; from its upper part two youths saluted the approaching Norbert, whose voices interior music accompanied and made festive, while a cannon thundered from the citadel, and meanwhile young men from the same, with bending of the knee and various ceremony, paid homage to the Saint. At last the Relics were carried into the church, and the Relics were placed upon the altar. and set upon the high altar with solemn rite, about the first hour after noon; for up to that hour, from the start of the procession, the festal procession had lasted. There, with the Princes, Counts, and countless others still present, the most illustrious Cardinal performed the sacrifice at the high altar; yet without the Pontifical ceremony, but with music continually sounding. After the Sacrifice, the Relics having been incensed, the Pontiff dismissed the people, bestowing upon them a happy blessing. And this was the solemnity instituted on the first day, in which, besides the unexpected favor of heaven, an almost infinite multitude of men flowed together; and so great was the applause and acclaim on every side, of trumpets and of bells both ecclesiastical and military, and besides of musicians and of muses, that they say no like triumph has been beheld since the founding of Prague. There was, as it were, a contest among the Counts and Barons, in pious rivalry, who should bear the canopy under which the holy Relics were carried. Nor did less liberality than piety appear in the Abbot of Strahov, who caused very many silver coins, stamped with the image of St. Norbert, to be minted, and scattered them among the poor and the people rushing in; which coins thereafter, on account of the image and memory of St. Norbert, were held by all not only in value but also in great veneration. Here is a copy of them.

[59] Various orders of supplicants come throughout the Octave. On the third day of May the most reverend Chapter of the Cathedral church instituted a solemn procession to the church of Strahov; and there held divine service with a sermon to the people concerning St. Norbert, which thereafter was done daily throughout a whole octave; for on each day some from among the Orders and the families of Regulars were present, who, having held a supplication, performed Sacred rites there, and praised the Saint before the assembly. And it was commanded by the Archbishop to all Preachers throughout the City, that during that Octave they should take no other theme but the praising of St. Norbert. On the 9th of May the triumph is renewed On the ninth of May, which was the octave day of the Translation, in the morning after the sixth hour, the venerable head of St. Norbert was carried with a procession of Premonstratensians into the Marketplace of Tein, that a new triumph might once more be instituted; with a very great concourse of people again. As they descended, the procession of the University of Prague came to meet them and joined itself to ours, distinguished by most beautiful order and variety; some bearing wax tapers, others palms before them, the Reverend Fathers of the Society advanced in a long column clad in linen, and each marked with his own stole. The canopy was borne first in the descent by Religious, then by the Nobles and Counts of the City. The sacred head three mitred Prelates carried in turn. In the middle of the Marketplace of Tein a certain Premonstratensian, having delivered an oration to the holy Father, gave thanks to all the Orders and to the people of Prague for the signal piety with which during the past octave they had attended upon the most holy Father; and prayed for all good things to the most invincible Emperor, the Kingdom, and the Triple-City.

[60] Then they proceeded as far as the first triumphal arch, most fully furnished with musicians; where, from others standing upon it, three most ornately arrayed youths descended, who in the name of the threefold City came to meet and salute the Saint; through the same three arches, but as the reliquary passed under it, five, lowered from the middle arch and hanging in a cloud, noble in the dress of the holy Patrons of the Kingdom, received it both with speech and with most festive song. Thence the passage was through the Society's church and over the bridge into the Lesser City to the second arch, illustrious both with Musicians and with Muses: there various crowns of gold, ivy, and oak were suspended, dedicated to the holy Father with noble verse. At last in the church of Strahov, after the Divine offices had been performed with solemn sacred apparatus, words concerning the holy Father were spoken to a most numerous assembly by one of the Society; where, among other honorable mention of the Premonstratensian Order, also its zeal and singular care for souls was proclaimed, nor did this worship of God and of the Saint end before the second hour after noon. After Vespers celebrated with festal symphony, and it is festively continued until night. again one from the Society ascended to preach; and in an elegant Latin oration he discoursed on the fruit of the Apostolic life and the labor of the Premonstratensians in the Vineyard of Christ, and on the mixed institute founded by the holy Father himself and left to his own. After this, from the triumphal arch, before the doors of the church, a scenic action was instituted: there was sung by two boys the solemn Canticle "Benedicite omnia opera" etc. Whatever they named in the canticle, with music interspersed, presently came forth at its name into the arch and onto the stage; fire, heat, cold, water, fishes, the heavenly spheres, etc. Little birds also, with attached slips of paper, were released into the open, as if about to go into the world and announce this joy to all: fires were kindled, and that action was carried on into the night itself, with the people and the nobles watching. And these things briefly. I most humbly pray God that His sons may not be carried away wavering and beg, and be cast out from their dwellings; but that with their holy Father translated they may rise up, and clothed with virtue from on high may grow and bud like the lily, and like the cedar of Lebanon spread their branches into all the earth.

CHAPTER VII.

Description of the Chapel in which the Relics were to be placed.

[61] Although the most holy Father was most worthy that the treasure of his Relics should be honored by the sons of Sion with the most splendid mausoleum, In the middle nave of the church yet because to a will most ready for service the power is often lacking, they took care to set up for the most holy Patriarch a chapel, not indeed yet befitting so great an inhabitant, but as costly as they could according to their means, with the liberal aid of certain patrons assisting. It is situated nearly in the middle of the church, distant by a space of eleven feet from the threshold marked off by the rails of the choir: which place, after the station of the high altar, seems the most honorable of all and likewise the most convenient; for both from the choir it is conspicuous on every side to the Religious (in whose minds the memory of the most holy Father ought perpetually to dwell); and it so strikes the gaze of the whole people at the very thresholds of the church, that it even diminishes the view of the high altar, except insofar as that can be seen through the latticed iron framework. an iron square chapel is erected The chapel represents the form of a castle or little tower, transparent on every side, eight and a half feet wide, as many deep, eighteen high; in a proportion, namely, somewhat greater than double; narrower indeed than the use and majesty of the matter would seem to demand, yet somewhat ampler than the very condition of the place would almost allow. The whole, from bottom to the very topmost peak, is constructed of solid iron lattices, drawn and gilded with various and most elegant art. The whole building below, up to the cornice, is square in form, closed by four sides facing the four quarters of the world: of which, on the western, twin doors of the same work and material are fixed, eight and a half feet in height, and in width four feet less a sixth: by which, opened to either side, it is usually entered.

[62] transparent with lattices elegantly drawn on each side: The threshold, fitly adorned and projecting, is of four feet and three quarters in width, of half a foot in height: each of the other sides is distinguished into two parts, the right and the left, as it were certain faces, by columns separating one from the other. These columns, longer by necessity than the rule of architecture would bear, are seen in the whole work to be nine, of nearly eleven feet in height. Four at the corners, as many; three composing, as we have said, the faces of three sides; the remaining two have their station on the western side, and indeed on the very front of the chapel; sustaining the doors themselves by hinges issuing from their own bodies above and below; and dividing them from the faces, which occupy the remaining spaces of that front or western side, being so much narrower than the rest. For whereas those four each hold a width of a foot less a third, these scarcely reach a half, being equal in length: which indeed are equally the same in all, together with the columns, except that those (namely the faces) are somewhat more contracted than these, by a margin of three and a half inches, within which, as within certain edges, the workmanship of the lattices running variously is enclosed, not immediately contiguous to the base below and the cornice above; but, for the sake of elegance and transparency, somewhat distant on either side: so that by clasps of work concealed and covered, the faces themselves are joined to the rest of the building. To that margin, surrounding each face in the manner we have described, a line or rule running through the very middle of the faces, and again dividing each into two parts, is like in figure and width. For thus it pleased the craftsman to divide the whole work; that by that means provision might be made both for firmness and for beauty (which, it is known, is procured by variety). For whereas of each of the sides there are only two faces, by the device of those rules they are exhibited as it were four; two upper, as many lower: whose rationale is this; that those which are of the same order should agree among themselves in appearance or figure of work, but be unlike the rest.

[63] In the part where the faces are bound to the columns by little screws, foliage at intervals shadows the columns themselves on the outside, as it were certain ornamental additions, so that the joining of the members might be more seemly and more concealed. Of the rules and margins within the gilded borders, and of the columns also, the color is black; with gold gleaming between for ornament, with little stars of gold gleaming here and there; the same is the color of the cornice and of the base itself; so that, namely, by that tincture the golden splendor of the remaining parts might become more eminent and pleasing. Yet the ribbons or ornaments of the cornice, and the projections themselves, are for the most part gilded. To the outermost columns,

namely those placed at the corners of the chapel, the craftsman, more for the elegance of the building than for firmness, added by ornamental work below, on the outer part, supports a hand-span and a sixth wide, three feet and a half high, and fixed into the ground. Beneath the whole mass lies a base of solid iron, about half a foot high, of somewhat less depth, fashioned as it were for a fringe, after the manner of a crown, with projecting lips. The same, a work of 6,515 pounds: in the part where it faces the valves or doors, serves them as a threshold. Beneath the base is set marble, level with the rest of the pavement of the church: more faithfully, namely, to bear the engine of so great a weight, six thousand and one hundred pounds. To which, if you add the weight of the Wing-bearers, of whom nine of cast bronze stand upon the gable and crown of the work, you will reckon the sum of six thousand five hundred and fifteen pounds.

[64] The crown, moreover, somewhat higher than the base, namely nine fingers, and becomingly adorned with its borders, ribbons, and projections suited to the work, is distant from the ground below by eleven and a half feet. Upon it eight little gables, gently rising from a base of four and a quarter feet in width to a point at a height of a foot and a half, drawn upward with rare artifice, were set as it were for so many summits or pinnacles of walls for ornament. For we have shown that the sides of the Chapel were distributed into so many faces as into single walls or partitions. Upon the little gables, at the top, little spheres of a somewhat compressed form are seen set, from whose summit proceed whirling cones, casting little flames upward. Within these little gables, from the inner lip of the crown, the roof of the whole work, in the form of a vault or arch coming together on every side into a dome as into its center, is raised to a height of six feet, with a gentle and elegantly curved ascent. That roof, no less transparent than the rest, gently bent rays produce, of two feet in height, of two feet and a quarter in width: of which rays some are straight, others quivering in the likeness of flames, alternately let down from the lips of the dome, their points inserted into the inner cornice, in that manner, namely, by which we commonly see the image of the divine Mother, the woman clothed with the sun, wont to be surrounded with rays by painters and engravers, so that a certain sun of its own seems to rest upon the chapel for a roof and to shine upon it.

[65] The dome itself, from which the rays we have spoken of issue equally scattered, corresponding to the lower work, and terminated with an elegant dome, and so square in form, is thus raised in the manner of a tower; that from below, of nearly a foot and a half in height, of three feet and two thirds in width, and of the same depth, rising directly, it represents a portico elegantly distinguished with little columns: of which little columns, from their base or the lower threshold of the portico, to the upper part, even to its very cornice, the height is nearly a foot. Thence, with the sides coming together by a varied and graceful curve, equally and gradually, by a threefold division the dome ends, brought to a point, in a blunt and square apex of a third of a foot in width: high therefore in all, from the lowest portico to the very summit, four feet. At the corners of the dome little leafy spheres, and cones or little pinnacles issuing from them, were set at the intervals of the threefold division we have spoken of. Upon the apex just mentioned a Wing-bearer of cast bronze, upon a square, stands on one foot, in the likeness of one flying; holding out indeed a crown with the right hand, a branch of palm with the left; as it were a reward or its symbol to the Triumphant one resting there. The measure of the Wing-bearer is two feet and a quarter: the weight, forty-seven pounds. By a like rationale and workmanship four others, set upon the cornice at as many of the outermost corners of the building, and smaller by a quarter than that uppermost one, hold and display in either hand little shields of cast bronze of oval shape, as certain trophies of Norbert the victor, inscribed with embossed work agreeing with his deeds and his praise.

[66] and with four flying Angels at as many corners, Of the first indeed, that is, of him who occupies the right horn of the front, the little shield shows the venerable Sacrament in a transparent and towered pyx, with an inscription added in a circle drawn round the outermost edge of the shield: "St. Norbert, Champion of the Most August Sacrament." On the shield of the second Wing-bearer, who is seen at the left horn of the same front, two scenes are represented; one of Innocent II, the Roman Pontiff, brought back into the City by the help of St. Norbert and set upon his seat, the schismatic Pier-Leoni having been expelled, who as a robber had invaded it; the other, of Tanchelin overcome by the same. The former indeed is seen in the upper field of the shield, with two hands on either side sustaining the middle Papal throne occupied by the Pontiff (by which emblem the faithful and powerful work of SS. Norbert and Bernard in accomplishing that is suggested); the latter, in the lower field, with St. Norbert trampling the heresiarch subjected beneath his feet. Whence the outermost circuit is inscribed with this praise: "Subduer of Heresies and Schisms." Of the third Wing-bearer, who stands on the right of the remaining corners toward the East, the little shield shows the same one, pouring out alms with either hand to the crowd of needy poured around him, with little shields containing the praises of the saint: with the inscription added; "Nourisher of the Poor." Of the fourth, finally, the little shield depicts St. Norbert reconciling to one another, by joining their hands in the pledge of friendship, those who before were turned away from each other; which the inscription explains: "Reconciler of the Disagreeing." Moreover, all have for a footstool spheres likewise cast, on which each, fashioned in the manner of flying ones, stands on but one heel. The height of these is five inches.

[67] with four others likewise seated along the sides, Besides these standing ones, others of equal number, of the same measure and weight, are seen sitting on the same uppermost edge of the cornice, between the little gables we have spoken of, and so in the middle of the sides, on flat seats likewise cast of bronze. These, fashioned in the manner of a sigma, with the horns more projecting than the middle, present somewhat the appearance of an architrave, of a foot and an inch in width; of a third in depth, of a quarter in height. From the lowest edge of the seat a veil as it were is let down, projecting, and broader from the top, and thereafter, by continuous contraction, narrower; with a female head, carved in embossed fashion. And they too hold out little shields with the right hand extended farther, similarly carved and inscribed. Of which, on the western one, that is, of him who sits in the middle of the front of the chapel, a crowd of demons, trampled beneath the feet of St. Norbert, is exhibited, with the inscription: "Terror of Demons." But of him who, sitting in the middle, looks toward the East, the little shield again shows the same St. Norbert, with his garment spread out on either side, covering and shadowing his own flock of Candidates, holding out similar little shields. as a mother hen is wont to do with her chicks under her wings: which emblem the inscription expounds, "Patriarch of the Premonstratensians." Of the third, who looks toward the south, on the shield are designated the Pontifical dignity of Norbert, and the Primacy of Germany added by the Roman Pontiff, on account of his merits, to the Archbishops of Magdeburg. This is designated by the figure of one sitting in a Hierarchical chair, with the ornament and insignia of the highest priesthood of that order; on the right the Roman Eagle, the sign of the Empire; on the left the emblem of the Diocese of Magdeburg, with these words inscribed; the inscription is this: "Archbishop of Magdeburg and Primate of Germany." The shield, finally, of the last, turned toward the North, shows the Relics of the most noble Martyr, St. Gereon, dear and famous to the people of Cologne of the Ubii, and wonderfully discovered by St. Norbert through a heavenly indication. The inscription is this: "Discoverer of Relics from Heaven." For it is read that he discovered many more bodies of Saints in the same place by a like indication. Moreover, the weight of each, both of the standing and of the sitting, together with their seats or spheres and little shields, is about forty-six pounds.

[68] And this indeed of that Chapel with its ornament, let it be not so much a description, Within this chapel an altar is erected, as a designation: since it cannot come to pass that works of such varied and great art should be sufficiently set before the eyes and according to the merit of the matter by words. Certainly it is established by the confession, nay the proclamation, of the skilled, that the artifice of that so vast a work of iron, that is, of intractable material, is above envy; and altogether such that we should not easily find its twin elsewhere. An altar of marble of crimson color, situated not in the middle of the chapel, but very close to its Eastern side, supported by 9 bronze columns, rests upon nine little columns of cast bronze: long indeed six feet and an inch, broad four feet less a sixth; deep seven twelfths. The little columns are spiral, with a vine embracing them with its tendrils and grapes, made according to the rule of the composite order. The height of each of the whole body is three feet and a sixth; of the shaft two and a half, of the pedestal with the spiral a quarter; of the architraves five inches: each weighing more or less ninety pounds. They stand likewise upon a marble stone, upon which two bronze Angels, of the same color and extent as the upper one. Now upon the altar itself two Wing-bearers, cast also of solid bronze, and of most noble art, were placed in the habit of stole-wearers; who, bearers of the sacred Ark, set apart on either side toward the inner region of the altar, and as it were facing each other, somewhat bent at the knee in the manner of those venerating, sustain the precious burden with both hands, the one holding the southern horn, the other the northern. The height of these is four feet with a sixth: each weighs five hundred pounds. The craftsman by a new device so tinged the material that to those beholding they truly seem golden.

[69] These, as also the little columns of which we have spoken, are the gift of the most illustrious brothers, the Lords Barons of Questenberg, they sustain the sacred ark raised on high. Gerard and Hermann; whereby in this year too it pleased them to attest their zeal toward the most holy Norbert, and their munificence toward us. To the same we owe in great part the expenses bestowed on the structure of the Chapel. Beneath each Wing-bearer are placed bases clothed in ebony, square, a foot and a half wide, seven twelfths high. And so a just space lies open between the Ark and the Altar; namely of four feet and a quarter: so that the Ark itself, being well lofty and therefore conspicuous, may rest upon the hands of the bearing Wing-bearers. The width of that space corresponds to its depth, the Wing-bearers being so far apart from each other as is the length of the sacred Casket. Between the bases there intervenes a distance of not less than four feet. A suitable place for the half-statue, which we have elsewhere said was to be given and dedicated as a proper case for the most holy Head, by the most illustrious Lady Polyxena Pernstein Manriquez, wife of the most illustrious Lord Arch-Chancellor Zdenko Adalbert, Prince of Lobkowicz, out of her own and her husband's zeal for our Saint and favor toward us, there to be placed. Before the doors of the Chapel, somewhat higher, a silver lamp let down from the top of the vault hangs, a hearth of eternal fire for the honor of the Saint. The remaining silver furniture, the sacrificial apparatus proper to the Chapel, we here forbear to recount. Although among them is the Chapel-set, as they call it, that is, the hierarchical vestments of the Prelate both when proceeding and when sacrificing, and of the two assisting for ministry, of silver cloth interwoven with golden flower, the gift of the Most Serene Prince and Lord Wolfgang Wilhelm, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Neuburg, Bavaria, Jülich, Cleves, Berg, etc.; which he, having deigned to lodge in the narrow quarters of our house, with heroic munificence went to offer to St. Norbert, once the fellow-citizen of his own subjects.

[70] The Ark, in which the Relics of St. Norbert are laid up, is of careful workmanship, composed of precious and varied wood of rare and very costly material. The very framework of the fabric, or rather the body, is of cedar, with little tablets of Indian wood set into the sides and above: which wood, of chestnut color, and uniformly spotted, with darker as it were little waves running throughout, vies with ebony in solidity, weight, smoothness, and luster.

The smaller square little chips, set into the front on either side at the sides, are wrought from a rarer material, which today they call sea-reed; and which is likewise distinguished by its spots, with pale ones running between the dark, so that it is doubtful which color is the more prevailing. The whole work is divided into two separable parts; the lower, which is the shrine; and the upper, which is set on for a lid and as it were a crown of the work. The shrine itself is closed by a valve set over it from above, and is guarded under a triple lock, being five feet and a half long, somewhat less than two wide, a foot and a half high. Its upper and lower borders are hewn in a wavy manner, such as is the appearance of the sea, when it is curved with the even rolling of the waves. The crown, with a gentle and somewhat inward-curved and as it were subsiding peak, erect on every part, and finished at a height of a foot and a half, does not end in a point, but is flat at the top, since below it has the same extension in length and breadth with the shrine set beneath, while above it is somewhat more than a foot wider, and more than four longer. Its own borders also adorn it, waved or fluctuating with equal artifice.

[71] The convex part of the crown, or the boarding, gemini half-Cherubim occupy at the outermost horns on either side: and carved who, emerging as it were with head and shoulders from the rest of the work, facing and gazing at one another, decorous with curls above the brow and hair gathered into a knot about the crown of the head, stand with wings meeting cross-wise in the middle. They themselves are somewhat more than a foot high, of cedar; their wings, a foot and a third extended from the shoulders, whence in place and manner of arms they issue, are skillfully fashioned of Indian wood. The whole structure of each, then, from bottom to top, where we said the wings meet, is three and a half feet in height. A silver color laid here and there upon the native one wondrously adorns the work. Furthermore, both the crown and the shrine itself, several cast silver plates, and fashioned into various shapes, fittingly cover and adorn each in their own regions. In the middle of the casket, before and behind, on a golden field, which the little silver Cherubim standing on either side hold with the hand, are inscribed the family crest and name of the Donor.

[72] Thus far the form and figure of the Norbertine Chapel has been abundantly depicted with the colors of words. But because thereafter the genuine idea of the whole work, conformed to its archetype, can scarcely be conceived by anyone, especially by one who has not surveyed each thing present with his eyes; we have taken care to have the copy of the whole chapel engraved in bronze and inserted into this history, together with the Crown afterward fabricated, above the chapel hangs a crown set over it, which so rises above the Saint's Chapel that it surrounds the highest of the spirits, the Wing-bearer standing upon the Chapel. The rare work in it all who first approach the thresholds of the church of Strahov admire; nor is it easily evident to the beholder in what manner so great an engine of it is sustained hanging in the air; since it is seen free on every side, except in its uppermost part, where, ending in a sphere, it is terminated by a cross, and covers an iron rod; which, almost eight of our ells long, of a thickness adequate to bearing the weight of so great a mass, most well secured with the strongest beams, descends through the uppermost vault of the church, whose opening a great rose covers with leaves spread out into a square; and below, having been seized by four iron ringed bonds, drawn upward at equal intervals from the inner border of the Crown, it sustains the whole engine of the Crown. Those bonds, a work vast and beautiful, of gilded wood, as also the whole outermost surface of the Crown, is covered with pure gold; but the inner part inclines from silver toward crimson; a color of that kind being laid over little silver leaves. By three elegantly fringed arches, running out to no small breadth, the Crown is rounded above, of which the greatest runs across its top. All these, as also the lowest, ending in the rim of the Crown which rests on the eight crowns of the Wing-bearers, are variously interspersed with pearls and many-colored gems, and also with winding and transparent little spaces. The two middle ones, with halves of others inserted into their tops, are joined to the lowest exactly parallel to the horizon: at the summits of these same, spheres likewise gilded, but those uppermost ones a little smaller, rest. From the uppermost border of the gemmed zone, which we said was equidistant from the horizon, eight ornamental additions rise up, more broadly pointed, separated by as many smaller ones, fashioned in winding work, whose centers very large gems adorn. The whole engine of this work, constructed of wood, coheres most firmly secured by various joinings of arches, drawn of the most solid iron material along the inmost surface. The height of the whole Crown exceeds fourteen of our ells by a quarter, the greatest diametrical breadth contains thirteen ells, but the smaller, which is of the lowest rim, eight and a half: the lower circumference is comprised in twenty-seven ells.

[73] Thus far what is gleaned from the fourth book of the Strahovians, of the year (as I foretold at the beginning) 1629, why it is represented in the plate as half smaller than it is. when the Crown was already hung; not yet fabricated, when the Ark of the sacred Body was carried into the Chapel above described, with that pomp which we shall describe in the following chapter, from the third of the little books printed before the fourth. Now, considering the form of the Chapel and Crown expressed in bronze here at Antwerp, I would have it noted, that this engraving of ours differs from the Prague prototype in this, that we have chosen to represent the mass of the most vast Crown (as said above) half smaller than it is, lest the cap (so to speak) should seem enormously to exceed the measure of the head it covers. For the Reader must remember that what is described at number 76 is the Chapel eight feet and a half, that is in cubits (which here seem to come under the name of Prague ells) not six full ones, wide and deep; high eighteen feet, or twelve cubits. Compare with this measure the breadth of thirteen, the height of fourteen ells, which the Crown is said to hold; and you will say that no proportion was preserved. I would believe it comes about that the mass, to be looked up at by beholders from below, seems much smaller than it is; and thereby it does not offend or diminish, but even adds majesty to the chapel standing below. But the engraved plate could not effect this, setting before the eyes at an equal distance the Chapel and the Crown; and therefore we preferred to exhibit it here more contracted. Different are the functions of the Crown and the Umbrella, or (as we commonly say) the Baldachin, as also their form; nor does the one easily come into the place of the other, so that an eye accustomed to the rules of art be not offended, unless with great moderation applied, concerning which I would not here dare to promise; especially since from those who have seen it, I have heard that so great a disproportion does not please. Those shields which you see hung on either side have their place in those two little escutcheons, empty in the plate above each post of the door, where to the Questenbergs, as the chief promoters of the most beautiful work, the right place is granted, The form of the altar and ark. the left to the insignia of the Strahov Abbey. But since the whole form and elegance of the altar and ark could not be aptly enough expressed, we exhibit it to you in another plate separately, augmented with a notable silver plate more recently provided, together with the tabernacle of the body of Christ; with which the whole vacant place below the ark is now handsomely filled; yet none of these were there then, when the things we are treating of were engraved: for they are of more recent work, from the magnificent munificence of today's Abbot. There is added, to fill the plate, the form of the Antwerp Ark, of which below.

CHAPTER VIII.

In the course of the year the first feast of the Deposition was instituted, and a magnificent procession was conducted.

[74] Thus now, having prepared the Chapel and whatever pertained thither for use or ornament, as well as we could, Invited to the feast of the Deposition it seemed good to await the annual day of the Translation, which should be made the same as the day of the Deposition of the most holy Relics. That this might be instituted solemnly and according to the dignity of the matter, there were invited by our Prelate the most pious Emperor with the Empress, the King his son, and his daughters the Archduchesses; that for this last act of our devotion concerning that office of his, and at the same time for the first annual commemoration of the truly triumphal Translation, he might most kindly suffer his own presence and that of his family (which alone for us and for the feast, above all, nay in place of all human dignity and ornament, would be) to shine forth, as so many suns. So courteously was it answered by him to the one inviting; that he even of his own accord asserted that he had long had that light in his prayers, and ardently desired that it would come. That he desired by every means to venerate St. Norbert; the Emperor and the Nobles, and that in this he now rejoiced for one thing alone, that he had obtained the means of making up by this very occasion the homage that in the past year had been interrupted by necessity. After the Emperor, the Princes who were in the city were approached and asked the same; the chief men both of the Court and of the Kingdom of either order. Invitatory letters also were sent, as had been done at other times, to the Fathers of our Society in Germany, France, and Belgium; that those whom necessity had kept away from the Translation, unwilling and grieving, the Deposition itself might have present. Both the City clergy, both at our request and by the admonition or even command of the most illustrious and most reverend Prince, for the 21st day of May, the Lord Cardinal von Harrach, Archbishop of Prague, were summoned. On the day therefore, beyond hope smiling with most pleasant serenity, the 21st of May, the fourth Sunday after Easter (which thereafter, not the second of May, will under this very title be the anniversary), at the sixth morning hour, with the sacred Relics we set out toward the metropolitan church, our journey continued. In a column indeed thinner, and with less pomp than that with which the return was to be; the Emperor, the Hierarch, the pomp setting out from Mount Sion

and the College of Priests, being about to join the series in the Metropolitan church first, where they awaited us. Yet some families of the Sacred Orders, whom, as nearer neighbors, we had called to set out with us so early in the morning, were present, and led our column. After them, the standards, trophies, and banners; in the number, manner, and order that we showed was kept in the past year during the Octave, borne before by those appointed. After these, with a silver Cross with a snowy canopy of silver weave, the badge of the white Canons, going before; we marched, clad in linen surplices; and those who were Priests, wearing stoles; each holding out a branch of olive (the symbol of the triumphant one) in one hand, in the other a white wax candle: in number indeed, whether of Prelates or of the rest, not really much fewer than we had been in the past year. It is established that it fell little short of ninety; so that that other number perhaps exceeded today's by twelve. Those who from France and Belgium, although by a very long journey, had altogether resolved to come, intercepted either by sickness or by new rumors of warlike tumults, suffered, by necessity, the failing of their best desires.

[75] The Prelates, the last column, mitred and clothed over the inner Priestly habit with a pluvial cope, once more, with great reverence, offered themselves as bearers for the desirable burden; the most holy head, closed in its silver case, being carried very near them under the canopy by the Reverend Lord Abbot of Gradicz: for our Prelate had to forgo that glorious office of piety; in order to have his hands free for scattering coins to be thrown (as in the past year). For in the procession only at the going out of the pomp, and at the entering of the metropolitan church, the scattering had to be done; for in the return, on account of the presence of the Emperor, there would be no opportunity of doing it. they receive it in the Metropolitan church. Thus the procession went all the way to the citadel and the metropolitan church; with most distinguished men, in great number, bearing snowy wax torches on either side of the pomp. As we entered into the church, the bearing Prelates set down the sacred burden at the high altar; the Emperor (who under these circumstances, descending from the palace with the Empress, his daughters the Archduchesses, the Grand Duke of Etruria and his brother, recently his guests, was entering the church) venerating the most holy Relics with a suppliant gesture and great affection of piety before all. The Most Serene King of Bohemia and the Pannonias, the son of the Emperor, a sickness which during those days had assailed him, begrudged from that light of our felicity and joy at the height.

[76] Thereupon our Prelate addressed the Emperor thus. It is a year, most invincible and likewise most pious Emperor Augustus, our King and most clement Lord; it is a year, since the venerable Body of the most blessed Norbert, once Archbishop of Magdeburg, the Abbot addresses the Emperor: and the first Primate of Germany on account of the merits of his deeds, and Founder of the sacred Premonstratensian Order, a man great on every side, your most Sacred Majesty asserting it (that I may say nothing more true) from the hands of strangers, and assigning it to your own people, the nearby people of Sion, for the protection of this city and kingdom, we translated. With pomp indeed, such and so great as befitted the sacred bones of so great a Hero in the church of God, according to the measure of our strength and the condition of the times. One thing only was lacking to the most joyful triumph and otherwise most splendid, both for joy and for light; the author himself and benefactor, your most August Majesty; and, if I may say so, the gem to its ring; the light to its heaven; the sun to its day; the head to the body. And so one thing only was then lacking; that is, [and he congratulates himself that this year is made up for what was lacking in the former,] everything: because the Emperor Ferdinand was absent. But he was absent, not because he was unwilling, he who everywhere else, when a business of piety is treated, is first and most ready; but because, common affairs requiring otherwise, what he most desired, he could not also equally accomplish. To our joy of all in this matter so vast an addition this year at last, blessed even on that account, has now added; that, your most August Majesty being present, and the most pleasant radiance of your good countenance shining upon the anniversary day of our triumph, we may have a far more celebrated memory of the Translation than the Translation itself. Of such worth to his own and to all is the one Emperor. Although, most August Emperor; not so much today's light in the course of the year is in truth the commemoration of the former feast, as its consummation. For although the sacred Relics were then carried into the city, and through it all into the church of Sion, and so were translated; yet they had not yet obtained any place proper to themselves in it. But they did not obtain it; because, while we were hastening the Translation according to the will of your most August Majesty, there was lacking the delay of fitting that place for so great a guest as for an eternal throne thenceforth, or rather of adapting it as a certain resting-place for that part of him, and adorning it sufficiently becomingly. Therefore it behooved us for a while to lay them elsewhere, in a foreign (I say) and temporary seat, as in a certain lodging; until, the proper one being meanwhile built and furnished, it might at last come about to translate thither and to place this new Guardian of Bohemia, of Germany, of the Roman Empire, and properly of the Royal and August House of Austria itself. the proper chapel being now prepared, This now, with good God consenting, and your most Sacred Majesty desirously and of your own accord (which indeed we rejoice and glory in) with your most august Consort, the Most Serene Archdukes, being present, we do; and we consummate the Translation of the most holy Norbert begun in the past year. May He who turns the world turn it well; and may He bid this day be happy and auspicious to your most August Majesty and to your Empire and Kingdoms; that under the auspices, resources, and authority of the Divine Ferdinand, the August Emperor, so precious a treasure, snatched from altogether unworthy possessors and the dishonored squalor of a long night, and asserted into that light and glory which now your Majesty so sees and makes; and at last placed on its proper throne, in the metropolis of the Ferdinandine Kingdom, and in the highest and nearest-to-heaven place of the metropolis itself; in the middle, I say, of its own Mount Sion; and hence he auspicates well for the August House. thence, as from a highest watchtower, may look round upon every side of this Kingdom and of the Roman Empire, an ever-watchful and eternal guardian; as from the heart of Germany into all its members may dispense the vital sap, infusing healthful things; as from near the royal citadel of the Austrians, may guard the August Emperor, his champion and so his worshipper, and all the Family, as a heavenly satellite at his station, armed with a fiery sword and ever keeping watch. What further to the Champion, O Augustus, I, my own, whoever, wherever our people, the whole Premonstratensian Society itself, may owe; how much we desire to be grateful; how by the heap of benefits (among which those vindications of Norbert are easily the chief) we can never be overwhelmed; already public writings too have more than once made my own and our testimony to the world, and will hereafter make it more attested. But for the thanks which we owe so often to your most August Majesty, having no other means or way to pay them, at least we offer vows, and the tribute of prayers sent to God for it: most heartily beseeching the most holy Triumphant one, to whom today, present according to his piety, he willed to conduct a most celebrated pomp, that to your same most pious Majesty he himself, powerful with God, may render from heaven the thanks which we cannot even render, an assiduous obtainer of all good things both here and there.

[77] After he had spoken, our choir sang to the Triumphant one with solemn jubilation; the Hierarch, the most illustrious Prince the Lord Cardinal von Harrach, pleading to the Deity through the merits of the Saint. The modes and formulas of the canticles and orations or prayers, which it happened to be celebrated here already, and thereafter at the rest of the stations, we have given in the Octave. For the same were repeated this year, except that they were fewer in number. Presently the front column of the pomp, altogether the same that had assembled at the Translation in the past year, in the area lying beneath the church, began the order in which it was to proceed. That order, as also the members of the column itself, namely the various Confraternities, Congregations, Families of sacred and other men, since we now had all the same things which we had at the very triumph of the Translation, narrated elsewhere, there is no need to repeat here anything. The column therefore having begun to move, and we now proceeding, the Hierarch took the sacred Head into his hands, the Prelates again took the casket onto their shoulders. The canopy the worthiest of the Nobles, each in turn; Then together all proceed to the place the rest of the Nobility, and the worthier of the people or court, a vast multitude, carried white torches. A numerous choir of musicians went before the bearers at a moderate interval, who with sweetest and almost continuous modulation soothed the ears and the air. The last of the column the same as the first of the world; the Emperor himself: proceeding with such composure of body, posture of countenance, modesty of eyes, serenity of face, and finally piety of soul; that the eyes of all, turned chiefly upon him alone, as upon the sun of that day or of heaven, both wondrously enjoyed the spectacle, and most healthfully were moved by the example, not without pious and joyful tears. The Empress followed him very closely; her own sun's very moon; the companion of the Emperor as of the empire, the kingdoms, and the marriage-bed, so also of piety: then the Most Serene Archduchesses; then the Medici Princes, the Grand Duke of Etruria and his Brother, both the ornament of our solemnity, as unhoped-for, so indeed most beautiful. After these the Empress's retinue of ladies, the other Princes and Magnates, succeeded in vast number. After these we saw (that it may be permitted to use the words of the Apocalyptic seer) a great crowd, which no one could number, of every nation, sex, age, and order: under these things Envy wasting away; and groaning that the glory and worship of the friends of God, which they had once boasted they would abolish even from the memory of men, should so increase daily (since now it was not permitted them here to rage). This glory is to all His Saints.

[78] Thus into the outer area of the citadel and near to its gate turned toward the setting sun, where the head of the pomp, namely the sacred bearers, the Hierarch, the Emperor, arrived; of the first station, the sacred Relics having been set down at an altar, which in place of a triumphal mass the Emperor had ordered to be erected there for the honor of the Saint, the first station was celebrated by declaiming youth. It was situated as it were in the midst of a most ample Chapel, with a spacious boarding built before it (which, somewhat higher than the rest of the ground, could be approached by a gentle ascent at the sides, and served the Chapel itself in the stead of a pedestal). Upon it, spread with carpets, the Emperor with his own, the Hierarch, and the Prelate stood. The sides of the Chapel most lofty columns with their pedestals and architraves adorned; sustaining the portico, set above with a cornice, and closed in front with little columns. In its middle they had set up a pedestal, on which a living statue of St. Norbert should stand. Before the pedestal below was a tablet with the inscription: "To God the Best and Greatest, for glory; to His friend Norbert, for honor." The portico, built in the figure of a sigma, narrower within in the rest of the body, thrust out horns projecting on either side for some feet: at the outermost horns the Roman double-headed Eagles were seen, higher than the cornice of the little columns by as much as was fitting. The living statue, then, of St. Norbert, which we have spoken of, in Pontifical ornament with a branch of olive in one hand, standing on its pedestal; and beside it (yet in a lower rank) on this side the Blessed Hayton, once King of Armenia, after the Tartars had been subdued by arms and added to Christ, once a Brother of ours; on that side the Blessed Godfrey, himself once of ours from the Count of Cappenberg, standing at intervals; the horns the Blessed Hroznata and Gerlac, Bohemian Heroes of the Premonstratensians, held: with the names of each subscribed to the crown of the frieze. The habit of all was ours; the King and Count bearing sceptres in the hand, crowns on the head. But those, before the rest of the Fathers of the white Order already once received into heaven, we read and gave as attendants to the Patriarch himself; because their representation seemed most to befit that place and office. In the royal citadel and mass of the Bohemians, it behooved to exhibit both kings or Heroes of royal blood, and the countrymen of this nation. The beginning of speaking, moreover, was made by the Sacred Genius or guardian Angel of this Kingdom, in hexameter verse, in which both Norbert and the other personated Saints spoke: but what they said, for the sake of brevity, are here omitted, as also in the other consequent Stations, of which it is enough to have indicated even the persons, that what was the subject of the congratulatory speech may be understood.

[79] the second The second Station, celebrated by a like rationale in the Ratschin area, which faces the citadel, most ample and western; at an altar, which in the likeness of a hemicycle or half amphitheater before his own dwelling the Orator of the Catholic King, the most illustrious and most excellent Lord Francis de Moncada, Marquis de Aytona, Count de Osuna, etc., with pure and great affection of piety had raised. A mass indeed pleasant to behold, and conspicuous with a numerous crown of torches and wax candles arranged both above and below and at the sides. And here too there was a boarding built before the mass; a place of reception for the Emperor, and the rest whom we have mentioned. In the uppermost portico over the altar within, (which itself too, adorned with little columns emerging from the cornice, ran forth in semicircular form along the horns) in the middle and higher than the rest again stood St. Norbert, with the same worship as before

as before. At his right side, farther from him, stood Spain, at his left Lusitania; in the dress of Queens, and each with the insignia of the kingdom. Near these, at the outermost horns, on the one side America, with a feathered diadem after the manner of her nation, with a feathered loincloth likewise at the navel, otherwise to appearance naked and bearing a spear, was seen; on the other side India, for the most part naked herself too, and darkened by the burning of the excessive sun: a short and two-fold covering, scaled with the thinned bones of fishes, veiled the middle of her body before and behind; a fillet of like color, or a black band of fine linen, surrounded her head, a shell necklace her neck; an umbrella, such as is in use among the Indians, overhanging from above, kept off the sun. The occasion of bringing in persons of this kind was taken from the condition of the donor himself. It is too well known to need pointing out, that Spain, or the Iberian and Baetic kingdom, and the Lusitanian, of which to the one America, to the other India is subject, now and formerly divided among Kings, were then under one Austrian head: to the Drama, as to the former, a hymn and oration succeeded: which was also frequently done elsewhere. the third, Hence they proceeded to the third Station. There is a gate, nearly at the mid-space between the citadel and our church, joining the sides of the street; by which those passing hither and thither, or from there to here, must necessarily pass. Alongside it, built up with green and crisscrossed arches, and adorned at the top with painted carpets, the citizens of Ratschin (for that is the name of that region of the city, or rather the fourth city of the people of Prague) had themselves also erected an altar, a kind of trophy of their affection and worship offered to the Saint. There the pomp halted for the third time. Above the arch of the gate the Sacred Genius of the Bohemian kingdom (the same whom we saw a little before in the citadel) stood, conspicuous from afar, and from on high exhorted Bohemia, his client, standing below on a stage opposite the altar in the dress of a Queen, to receive the Saint, and for him to give thanks to the Emperor and pray well.

[80] the fourth, The fourth trophy the people of Pohorzelitz had set up, townsmen under our jurisdiction; again at the mid-site between the Gate, where we stood a little before, and Sion. It was an altar, adorned in a manner like the rest; on whose dome stood St. Norbert; to whom, adorned as hitherto, in place of the branch of olive was the image of the Venerable Sacrament in the other hand. The substructure of the boarding also ran out from the altar by as great a space as was enough for the reception of the Princes and Prelates; to which on either side an ascent gently sloping, with certain barriers, should exclude the rushings-in of the crowd. From the corners of the boarding, in place of columns, trees rose up, with leafy and green top; on each upper side of which as many arches veiled with foliage, and each one intercepted between two, should end. Likewise from the outermost boarding, opposite the altar, they had erected a stage, a stall of five persons. There Italy held the place, in imperial dress; Gaul, in royal; Belgium, in ducal; the Rhine, in river dress. With these stood as a fifth Saxony, in the womanly and splendid ornament of her nation; mute, however, in grief for the Norbert snatched from her, and for so great an ornament when it was present; and for the present, of protection, and for the future, of hope. Tears only from the eyes, and sighs from the depth of the heart, spoke for her. What persuaded the exhibiting of these persons, those things will say which they spoke. It is as it were a quarrel of those regions over the body of Norbert; each claiming for herself rather the right to it, with great contention. This drama indeed ought to have been of the third Station, and to have been performed before that next one, representing Bohemia a little before: for by these devices it was being acted, that the favor of the Triumphant one toward the Emperor, and on his account toward Bohemia, his kingdom, might be shown; who, so many Kings, Princes, Kingdoms, Regions being passed by, willed to desert his most ancient resting-place, and to follow Ferdinand alone, and to be where he should desire. But, because the condition of that place at the Ratschin gate seemed less suitable for arranging this crowd of persons fittingly, the appointed order had to be inverted. Thus therefore from the stage Italy, exclaiming to the sacred bearers of the most precious treasure, began first. The rest followed in the same meter. When they had fallen silent; there was singing by us, peroration by the Hierarch: and so at last, the column advanced, through the grove arranged on either side from that trophy all the way to the outer gate of our Monastery, we began to touch the harbor of that voyage of ours. That gate, clothed in spring adornment, into the area spread before our sacred church, and green with a far and dense series of recent woodland, transmitted the pomp.

CHAPTER IX.

The last station of the pomp, and the end of the whole solemnity.

[81] At the aforesaid mass, built before the Western front of our church, we celebrated the fifth and likewise the last station. It was a triumphal arch, raised there in the Corinthian manner by those who hastened; and rising from the stylobate (which it seemed good to lay beneath the work for majesty) by a double story to a height of fifty-four feet; as many, less two, Before the front of the church of Strahov, wide; twenty deep. The stylobate was four feet from the ground; so that for those entering the mass there had to be some ascent: for which thing a boarding was built, which, gradually and gently raising itself from the ground, should reach to the first threshold of the gate, in a space of twenty-six feet; wide, at the beginning indeed sixteen feet, at the end twelve, namely as many as was the gate itself. That boarding, with little columns arranged in order for elegance and use, with a crowning beam added above, was finished on either side at the sides. The front of the lower story, six feet high, with two columns on this side and as many on that, marble in appearance, hemmed in the very middle entrance through the mass to the church. These columns, round in figure, were each enclosed by two flat ones standing within and behind, and as it were girding the side: so that consequently the number of the flat ones was double that of the rest. Each space between the columns, according to the height, was distributed into two parts; a stage having been erected, the lower cut out into the form of a shell or rather a chapel, which could hold the persons to be placed there; the upper thereafter built in the manner of a gallery: which gallery, girt below (as is usual) with little columns, otherwise open, should admit choirs of singers. The shells, from their own flat ground to the top of the little dome, had a height of eight and a half feet; were four and a quarter wide; two and five-twelfths deep. Below the shell and between the pedestals of the columns, of equal height with them, what space remained, was suitable for an inscription.

[82] In the midst of these things stood the gate itself; high twenty-four feet, wide twelve. The upper story, two feet more drawn inward or more contracted than that other, with a wide gate, hedged with a comely series of little columns at the inner margin of the crown, had a height of eighteen feet, a breadth of eight and a half, a depth equal to the height. It was cut according to the breadth into three parts; namely, as many arches erected between the flat and combined columns, and suited, in the manner of chapels, for holding living statues: of which the middle, greater than the rest and projecting three feet more, should fill a height of fifteen feet, eight in breadth; the lateral ones, so much more contracted, were six feet wide, fourteen high. Upon them was set the summit of the whole work; for the number of the arches, a triple gable, each over its own crown. Yet an ornamental addition was added to the work, a Mountain emerging from the top of the mass, a certain representation of our Sion. In the middle, a pine eminent from the mountain stood for us in place of a cypress, which should signify our Patriarch and his sacred body carried into Mount Sion; with an inscription set at the foot of the mountain: "Like a Cypress on Mount Sion." Mount Sion was depicted standing: At the crown of the upper story this inscription had been made; "To St. Norbert, vindicated by the help and auspices of St. Ferdinand II, and brought hither for protection, of Sion." The middle arch of the same story was the throne of the Virgin Mother, an inscription written round at the margin of the little dome explaining it: "Virgin Mother." and in it the Mother of God, Beneath which, another was added: "From her, to both, divinity and name." To both; namely, to the Premonstratensian Order, and to the monastery of Mount Sion; which were represented by two persons in the lower (as we shall presently see) story. The right arch had Norbert in Pontifical ornament; with the inscription; Norbert, "From him, through her, the origin of both." In the left was the station of our Blessed Hermann, commonly Joseph (so called on account of his mystical nuptials with the Virgin, the Angel making the match). Hermann-Joseph, Beside St. Norbert our reason for representing him in that place was, besides the celebrity of that name, both because he was of Steinfeld (in which monastery of great and good name we are once born), and because the best Emperor today greatly strives, by petitions often sent to the City on this account, for him to be inscribed in the album of those to be referred to among the Blessed. And so over his head also was written: "From him, through her, the honor of both."

[83] In the right shell of the lower story, the Premonstratensian Order; in the left, with the Genii of the Order and of the House. our Sion; both in the virginal habit of Nuns of the same Order, with flowery garlands on the head, bearing the instruments of prayer in their hands, stood. With inscriptions added; there indeed, "The Marian Nation of Norbert": but here, "The Marian Sion of Norbert." Both we call Marian, because each singularly worships that great Queen and Lady, and acknowledges her as patroness. Certainly our house's old name from its first origin is, "Monastery of St. Mary in Sion, commonly Strahow." The chamber or inner vault in the middle represented the venerable Sacrament, Then the Venerable Eucharist, with the sun pouring rays on every side around it; with an inscription added on this side: "The Trophy of Norbert." On the other: "The Sun of the Austrians and their Salvation." We Premonstratensians indeed rejoice and glory that the same emblem or symbol fell by divine providence both to Norbert and to the Austrians. Which the scenes, expressed at either side of that Sun in the lower region of the vault, show. For on this side Norbert is seen, routing the most wicked Tanchelin, and snatching the most August Sacrament from the hands of him about to trample it now beneath his feet, and restoring it to its dignity; with the inscription added: "Great Norbert, because he vindicated." vindicated by Norbert, But on the other side it was to behold Rudolf, Count of Habsburg, prostrate on the ground, and a suppliant from afar to the same most august Sacrament; his horse, most generous, from which for the sake of veneration he had now dismounted, being handed over to the priest who was carrying it for use and as a gift. By which one homage of such great piety, as by its origin, this greatness of the Austrians, which we now behold embracing both thresholds of the world, was born: passing from that one man to posterity, even to now, as in piety, so also in dignity, as by a certain patrimony. Which the inscription added implies: "Great Austrians, because they adored."

[84] adored by the Austrians; The straight and flat sides under the vault of the Gate, by an ample scene, again bring together Norbert and Ferdinand, by a likeness or rather by a certain interchange of offices. On the right the Emperor father and the King son are seen bearing on their shoulders the Relics of the most holy man, and carrying them to Sion; with companions and Angels on either side applying the hand to the sacred casket for homage; the following column of the Princes of both orders of men; our Prelate with us receiving it under the triumphal arch. Above it is written: "Ferdinand triumphs to Norbert." finally a triumph to the Saint, from the Emperor; The Emperor indeed bore it on the shoulders of the Prelates; who, unless he had by favor and authority assigned to us as an eternal gift those sacred Relics vindicated into this light and glory, would never have taken them onto their shoulders.

Below was placed this epigram:

Than whom the world has nothing greater; nor anywhere does the eye of the world behold a better man, he bears the bones of his peer, The Caesar father and the King son uphold him. Well done: They could not be carried by a nobler chariot.

[86] carried by the latter to the former: The left side has the Emperor himself, in turn (with Norbert leading and as auspice from the clouds) triumphing. This the scene teaches; exhibiting the August father and son carried together in a triumphal chariot; in such wise, that the latter sits alone on the front seat, in Royal dress; the former is seen in Imperial dress on a broader and loftier throne behind; with the image of Victory standing at the stern, holding out in one hand victorious garlands, in the other a palm. White horses, four-yoked, bound in one and the same row to the same yoke, push forward the chariot; at the prow the Roman Eagle hovers over the pole. Thus the Lord Ferdinand, by a broad and splendid way through the clouds, is raised on high a triumphant one, with Norbert coming to meet him from the heavens, and bringing down a branch of olive with ready hand. Beneath the chariot a wide-spread carnage of men, arms, nay of diadems too and sceptres is seen; the spoils or trophies of the victor. After him, a column proceeds wearing the cap of liberty, of those owing their deliverance or liberty, or even safety, to Ferdinand. The column Religion leads, modestly adorned, her hands laden with cross, rosary, little book, the insignia and instruments of piety. Her there follows the Roman Empire, in Imperial dress; whose middle side close in, on this side Germany, on that Bohemia, attributing it altogether to the Emperor, that they are safe, or have begun to be. Above is inscribed: "Norbert triumphs to Ferdinand." With an Epigram added below:

Norbert leads; Victory is his companion; the strewn arms are the ground; the clouds, the way; the goal, the pole. Thus the fortunes of Ferdinand, with heaven driving, are borne: Why dost thou rage; and stir, O Envy, an empty war?

When therefore the head of the pomp reached and halted at this mass, Here the pomp stood, received with a musical concert. a musical youth, clad in a cloak of green silk, and standing above the gate on the middle crown, with sweetest modulation roused the Persons placed in the shells, namely the Premonstratensian Order and our Sion, to rejoice, with the choir of lyre-players and pipers with their organs answering from behind in the recess of the engine.

[87] After mutual congratulations and vows alternated on either side with musical concert, the Hierarch began with solemn voice the Eucharistic canticle to God the benefactor: which, the choir of our men taking it up, at last the last series of the pomp penetrated into the church. Where, the venerable Relics having been placed on that throne of theirs, among the hands of the Angels, the most illustrious and most reverend Prince the Lord Cardinal von Harrach, kindled with his own hand the first and eternal flame in the hanging lamp-holder which we have described; and having venerated the Triumphant one with a suppliant gesture, addressed him at the last with these set words and a fixed prayer. and the Archbishop, the ark having been placed in the new Chapel, This flame to thee, most holy Norbert, I a Prelate kindle and dedicate festal to a Prelate; which, gleaming from the bright hearth of a better metal, with olive-oil nourishing it; as it is a clear index of thy light with which thou art clothed glorious in heaven, and a certain daily witness and monument of our worship toward thee; so to us, living in the turbulent darkness of this age, may it show, not by an empty signification, that the light of truth, and the ardor of charity, and the oil of peace, come by thy intercession from the Father of lights and the God of peace assiduously. Be honored, having addressed the Saint, he perorated. O Thou new and mighty Protection of this renowned Kingdom, of my great Sheepfold; and so continue henceforth from this today's and forever-after resting-place of thy bones to guard that people of his with the most holy King, the flock with the Shepherd; that, as by some part of the most holy boy, the martyr Vitus, our metropolis is glorious; so by Thee, that is by thy whole body, the church of Mount Sion may be glorious. After this, Mass having been celebrated with solemn rite and chant, the Hierarch offering, the Emperor with his own most piously kneeling down. And indeed, although the day, by the delay of so many stations and by the very slowness of the proceeding pomp, had been made far advanced; yet it pleased the Emperor that there should be one to praise the Triumphant one briefly before the assembly.

[88] thereafter a daily Mass of the Saint there St. Norbert thus placed, is worshipped with constant devotion of citizens and strangers in this new place of his repose. Daily there a Mass of the Saint is celebrated, about the time of the canonical Prime, in which always a memory of the most August Emperor and of our King is made by the Celebrant, through a special Collect of the Missal. On Sundays and feast-days the said sacrifice of the Mass is performed with more solemn rite and chant. Moreover, every week the office of the High Mass is celebrated under the name of the same Saint. Of the fire, hanging in the silver hearth before the chapel, we have already before made mention. Besides, the sons of Strahov daily, right after the Vesper psalmody, going out from the choir into the middle of the church, in order and in a double series, kneeling before the Relics of the most holy Father, with a suppliant modulation chant the following Antiphon; and a special invocation after Vespers. to which by the Officiant a Collect is subjoined with a preceding versicle. This is the chosen vessel, filled with the Holy Spirit. This is Norbert, the great friend of God. This is the strong warrior, who fought with the ancient serpent. This is the Angel of peace, the Herald of penance; mighty in word and in work, in signs and in wonders. This Father let us, his sons, this Patron let us, his clients, devoutly approach: with suppliant voice let us ask, crying out, Holy one of God, Friend of the Bridegroom, Norbert father and guardian, glory of our Mount, by thy prayer make the Lord favorable to us. Hear us, hear us, Norbert; us whom thou deignest to honor with the sacred treasure of thy body, make to feel the efficacious grace of thy intercession. Alleluia. ℣. The Lord guards all the bones of the Just. ℞. Not one of them shall be broken. Prayer. O God, who art glorious in thy Saints, and by their intercession appeasable to us; we beseech, that thou wouldst guard this place, which thou hast deigned to adorn with the venerable Relics of Blessed Norbert, our Father under thee; and all who dwell in it, with our King and his Kingdom, from all harmful and adverse things, he himself keeping watch. Through Christ etc.

[89] Thus far the words of the Prague booklet: to which we add that the noble contriver of all the aforesaid and glorious accomplisher, and helper of John Lohel in reforming the monasteries of the Order throughout Germany, and his successor in governing Sion, met his day on the 28th of June in the year 1640, Abbot Caspar dies in 1640 on the 18th of June: and to him our George Crugerius wove an ample eulogy among the sacred Ashes of that month; but the Strahovians set up this Epitaph. To God the Best and Greatest, to the honor and memory of the most reverend Father and Lord, the Lord Caspar von Questenberg, a man truly great in word and work: in whom, as a Patrician, Cologne, as an Abbot, this Monastery, as Visitor and Vicar General throughout the Imperial regions, the Premonstratensian Order, as Counsellor, his Sacred Caesarean Majesty, as the asserter of their liberty, the Monasteries of the Order, his Epitaph as champion and translator, our Patriarch the most holy Norbert rejoices: who, full of works, merits, and days, in the Year of Christ 1640, of his age the 69th, of his rule the 28th, on the 4th of the Kalends of July rested, his most mournful Sons set up this monument.

[90] In the year 1630 with enemies threatening the city, Moreover, just as, when a hostile army rushes in, each of the Citizens is wont to take his Treasures into more secret places, so it was also fitting, when the same dangers of enemies pressed, that the Religious of Strahov should provide for the safety of the sacred Relics of St. Norbert (which are their one Treasure), lest perhaps some sacrilegious hand should profane them by a profane daring. This happened first in the year of Christ 1630, with the forces of the Saxons threatening, when the Sacred Bones, the most reverend Lord Caspar von Questenberg consenting, wrapped in a most clean linen cloth and put into a coffin of thicker oak, lay hidden under the earth for thirteen years; until, the hostile fury cooling down, they were again taken out, and replaced with honor in the ark of the Chapel. A greater danger threatened our treasure a second time, when in the year 1648 the Lesser City of Prague was taken by the Swedes, breaking in secretly by night. A sudden chance suggested a wholesome counsel to one of the Strahov Priests, to transfer the same treasure, with few aware, into a certain more secret little place of the Church, which, by means of the space of a truce, sending it off secretly to Old Prague through the midst of the enemies, The sacred Body is hidden. we afterward received into safer places. Let no one therefore be seized with suspicion, that this most precious treasure was at some time snatched from the Strahovians by the enemies; nor that we venerate no longer the relics of the most holy Father, but certain substituted bones. The pious Heaven-dwellers have hitherto preserved, and will hereafter preserve, this precious treasure of Strahov, that the Sons may never cease to glory in their native Father.

[91] Frequent miracles at it. Meanwhile it can be proved by several examples that the most holy Heaven-dweller, invoked by women in labor with a vow, succors with most present aid, and by his intercession eases the births of women in peril. With the same power are endowed the sacred Ashes, which flowed down from the dissolved body of the Saint: for these, taken inwardly with devotion of mind, have snatched many in childbirth, in peril of life, from the very jaws of Libitina. We omit to relate the number of those who, set in other diseases and necessities, have experienced the help of the Saint implored with confidence. And St. Norbert would shine conspicuous today with more miracles, and would extend more widely the fame of himself by his powerful Patronage with God; did not the confidence of the peoples, and their worship and piety toward the sacred citizens of God, fail, who so visit us, as we worship these.

CHAPTER X.

The people of Antwerp, invited to the Translation of the year 1627, send two of their own Religious.

[92] The acts and applause of the Strahovians we have heard from their own booklets, The Echo of the people of Antwerp, embracing the acts of two years in one tenor; although the order of time could have required, that we should lend an ear to the Echo resounding from Antwerp in the very year of the translation made. This therefore I undertake to do in what follows: and first of all I recall to memory, that the Abbot of Strahov (as said at number 53), as soon as, having obtained his wish, he had returned to Prague, invited the alumni of the whole Order to the future solemnity of the translation: but that, by the letters with which this was done, defining a certain day, namely the Kalends of May, concurring with the fourth Sunday after Easter, the former ones were of another date, the circular letters indicate, of which the Antwerp Echo gives us back not only the last syllables, but the whole tenor, as they were sent to the Belgian Abbots and Religious, under this superscription. Most Reverend Lords, Venerable also and Religious of the Belgian Congregations, under Blessed Norbert, in Christ Confreres and Brothers.

[93] To whom now rather than with those words of Paul shall I address you: I rejoice and congratulate you all. Do you also rejoice in this very thing, and congratulate me. Congratulate me (I say), because I have found the drachma, so badly lost through heresies, sought so anxiously, so laboriously, with so great expense, tokens of the body brought from Magdeburg, through so many and so great dangers, for a long time. A noble drachma, precious, desirable. The sacred Body, I say, of St. Norbert our Father and Patriarch, from that long night and from the hands of his enemies we have snatched; and, made of our power, at last into the light (the Lord doing it) we have brought forth. Blessed

be God who has wrought mercy, and has not disdained our groanings, our labors, our hands, by the accomplishment of so glorious and holy a work. To Him be glory and to His Saint forever, to Him thanks for so great a grace. In these days, having now set out for Magdeburg a fourth time, I obtained, having redeemed by a thousand ways and expenses the will of those wrongly detaining it, which the authority of the most glorious Emperor and the petition made graciously to them had chiefly impelled; I took it out of the sepulchre, hitherto for so many centuries closed and whole; I bore it away, and brought it with me into Bohemia. No suspicion of fraud, no trace. I saw all things in person, nay I did them myself, with many and great men assisting as witnesses, enemies too of our faith and of the Saints, the very Senators of the city… (here the whole series of the matter, as it was done, is touched briefly in a short narration) and from the place of the old burial, having given thanks to God, we reverently took out everything, not even any dust of the sacred body and the garments, nor any shavings, being left to the old lodging, and placed in an ark we carried them with us into Bohemia safe and glad, and for a time deposited them in the monastery of Doxan. The whole series of the deed, more widely and in order, narrated from its very beginning to the very end, confirmed also by the attestation of a public Instrument among the people of Magdeburg made thereby, we shall presently subjoin in print, and make common to all.

[94] Therefore concerning the sincerity of the most holy Relics both we ourselves are altogether certain, and we bid you to be. and invitations to the Translation: Again I say: Rejoice with me, and congratulate me, all you who love the Lord and his Friend Norbert. Moreover, because delay was necessary for us in choosing, fitting, and furnishing the place, where thereafter we may honorably receive so infinite a Treasure in our church: also for ordering and preparing those things with which we may celebrate the most noble Triumph of the Translation, in our often-mentioned monastery of Doxan we have placed the Body itself, in the meantime to be faithfully and reverently guarded. I hope that not long after the next Easter all things will be ready: when, with the most illustrious Lord Cardinal our Archbishop, we have appointed a certain day, we will see to it in good time that you may know; and to the common Feast, to be celebrated with body and soul present together with us, glad and ready, those whom the matter and the honor of so great a Father of ours will require, to hasten. May God long preserve your Most Reverend Paternities, and your Venerable Religious Fraternities also, unharmed, by the intercession of St. Norbert our Father, and ever useful and glorious to His House and to our whole Order, the Family of the same Father Norbert. At Prague in my Monastery, the 23rd of December 1626, the Servant, Confrere, and Friend in Christ of your Paternities and Fraternities, Brother Caspar von Questenberg, Abbot of Strahov of the Premonstratensian Order, Visitor in the Kingdoms and Provinces of the Emperor, and Counsellor of the same Majesty.

With these letters others also came, to the most ample Magistrate of the city of Antwerp, of this tenor.

[95] We could not, Most Illustrious, Most Noble, and Most Ample Dignities of yours, conceal our recent joy, since it is also yours. and others to the Magistrate of Antwerp. The glorious Apostle once of your City, of your renowned city, the most blessed Norbert, the white Patriarch of our Order, Archbishop of Parthenopolis, Primate of Germany, whose memory is in benediction even so and so deservedly in your same renowned city; Him, I say, the common Father in Christ of us both, at last in these days a little before elapsed, by the ineffable gift of good God, from that long and hitherto inglorious squalor of his, among the enemies of our faith and of the Saints, we have snatched; and into light, into a light at length so great as is yours, we have asserted. Rejoice with us, Most Illustrious and Most Ample Lords; because we have found him whom we were seeking. I know, you rejoice; namely as much as you have hitherto grieved and groaned with us, that he lay hidden in darkness, by whose mouth and works through Christ in your greater ancestors of old you received the day of truth. You grieved indeed, and as much as was in you, you strove to snatch him thence. He has now fulfilled your vows and most pious endeavors, our zeal especially, hands, and labor, not having disdained the accomplishment of so great a work, the Lord, the glory of His Saints. The whole series of the deed to the most reverend Father, Lord, and Confrere of ours, the Abbot of St. Michael there, we have briefly written; in which also some from among themselves are asked to be present. asking the same, that he himself set it forth in person to your Most Illustrious, Noble, and Ample Dignities, and make it common. We, lest by a more prolix epistle we should perhaps become burdensome to the same, have not here appended it. When by the will of the Emperor the day shall have been fixed, on which solemnly and with the pomp that should befit the triumph of so great a Saint, the most holy Relics from the place where we have for a while deposited them under careful and faithful custody, full of veneration, must be translated into the city of Prague and this our monastery; we will at once make your same Dignities more certain: full of hope, that, according to that supreme piety and zeal of theirs everywhere on earth most known toward God and His Saints, especially toward this Father of their faith, they will not be loath to be present through some of their own, and to heap up with a certain rare splendor of their presence the most joyful glory and light of the Feast. We certainly, among other insignia of the Triumphant one, will carry round that banner of your renowned city inscribed with silver weave. May God the Best and Greatest preserve and ever increase your Dignities by the merits and intercession of St. Norbert; and, having well deserved of His honor and that of His own, the enemies of the common good being at last forced near to peace, restore them to the flower of their former felicity.

[96] These letters, and new others, which you have read in the place cited above, dated the 13th of January 1627, having been brought to and received at Antwerp, our Reverend Prelate Matthew was by no means willing to be wanting to his part, but rather to honor at least through his own this triumph of his best Parent. And having heard upon it and brought into deliberation the Convent of his church, Two from among the Michaelites are delegated thither, he resolved to commit his place to the venerable men, the professed Canons of his church of St. Michael, Matthew de Beir and Prosper Moriconi: to whom, that in his name they should attend the triumph of the said Translation, he gave these (as they call them) credential or trust letters. We Matthew, by God's permission Abbot of the church of St. Michael of Antwerp, of the Premonstratensian Order, to all who shall see these, eternal greeting in the Lord. We make known, that We, for the increase of the glory of God, and for the honoring of the Triumph of the Translation of St. Norbert our Father, the Founder of our Order, Archbishop of Magdeburg and Apostle of Antwerp: who not so long ago, under the happy auspices of the most invincible Emperor Ferdinand, was carried into the Kingdom of Bohemia; have sent off to Prague our beloved Confreres in Christ, Matthew de Beir, formed Bachelor of most holy Theology, Professor of Philosophy in our monastery; and Prosper Moriconi, Bachelor of Both Laws, Canons and Priests of our church; and to the same have committed our place in all things. Whom therefore to each and all, to whom it shall happen the same to turn aside in this journey, as upright Religious, in the bowels of Christ we earnestly commend, and declare by the attestation of the present writing that they are to be held as such by all; that, their commission, according to the instruction given them by Us, having been happily performed, they may be able to return again unharmed to Us. In faith of which we have commanded these credential letters to be drawn up, to which we have subscribed our name, and caused our seal to be impressed. with the insignia of the City and of the monastery: Done in our Abbey of St. Michael at Antwerp, the 2nd day of March 1627.

[97] But because for the apparatus of the Triumph the Insignia of our Church of St. Michael also, as well as those of the City of Antwerp, had been requested by the Abbot of Strahov; the same, neatly expressed in their colors, the Abbot of St. Michael sent with these subjoined letters: in which he both answers his former ones, and signifies the arrival of his Confreres setting out for Prague. Most Reverend Lord and most worthy Confrere. How much by his repeated letters given to us your Lordship has gladdened our whole Community, in vain shall I attempt to explain by these meager characters. For how should good sons not exult, when they see so unusual a glory decreed to their Parent? Certainly we Antwerpers above all his sons could not but rejoice immensely, when we see that glorious Apostle of our city, the Founder of our house, by your dexterity and insistence snatched from the heretics, and carried into the renowned Kingdom of Bohemia, so illustrated. But to speak of myself; I will frankly say with the holy Patriarch Jacob: Now I shall die happy Gen. 46:30, since I understand St. Norbert so glorified by the Lord, and our mystical Joseph so exalted. Nay, and were I not prevented by a greater age (for the days of the years of my life are small and evil, eighty-five), I myself would in person greatly congratulate, if I could have been present at the decreed triumph of his Translation, with my other Confreres and fellow-Abbots. We have meanwhile given a commission to two Confrere Priests from our Monastery, who in that solemnity will perform our part and that of our whole House; and with the letters of the Abbot of Antwerp, if only (as I hope) they can complete safe and unharmed their journey, which they have undertaken toward Bohemia. The encyclical epistles of our Circary, which moreover your most reverend Lordship had given to me, as soon as we received them, we took care to be delivered to the Lord Prelate of Park, our Vicar: but because he was detained by his Visitations in Taxandria, hence it is that we have not hitherto received his answer: we do not doubt meanwhile, that on the part of the Province he too will not be wanting to his office. But we, for our particular homage, by which we Antwerpers, his sons, are bound to St. Norbert, were unwilling to be wanting to our duty; and we send here together the insignia of our House which you requested, expressed in their colors, if they could serve for the honoring of the triumph of the Translation. But meanwhile, while our Confreres hasten their journey, who also on our part will deliver to your Reverence letters, we will not cease to ask God the Best and Greatest, for your most Reverend Lordship, and your Royal monastery (to which from our heart we congratulate this so great glory), who may long preserve and keep safe your most reverend Lordship, for His Church and our sacred Order. The 3rd of March, in the year of the Lord 1627.

[98] To these letters of the Antwerp Prelate, this answer the Abbot of Strahov gave on the 20th of March: The letters of your Reverend Paternity, full of joys, congratulations, to whom the Abbot of Strahov answers that they will come most welcome to him. and of the best feeling toward me, greatly refreshed me; and stirred in my breast two affections, much different. For with those many and good years of your most Reverend Paternity, which same I venerate and vow to increase, I am almost (if it be allowed) angry, that they intercept from me the sight of your most welcome countenance. Yet well; that to the triumph of our most holy Father (since he cannot his own) he displays as much as he can, that is a vicarious presence. Let there come indeed for the Father, two or more Sons; who by his light, which they represent so from afar, from that house, from that city, will bring no small glory to the feast of the most blessed Norbert, and joy to us. I will receive

with the arms which must be opened to those coming both from there, and from so great a journey, to meet them. For the insignia sent I give thanks: I will see to it that each is inscribed on the several banners, with a grateful commemoration of both names added. But would that the piety and resources of this our people were such as the Antwerp! With what beauty, with what apparatus, with what glory would we conduct the consort of the great King, and thereby a King himself, the Blessed One and the One coming in the name of the Lord, as he enters into his own Mount Sion! Now our endeavors and our masses, by necessity, stand far below our spirit and the merit of the holy Man. Yet I hope it will be no less acceptable to the Triumphant one, whatever we will above what we can. I pray God, by the merits of His Friend and His sacred bones, that He may will the venerable gray hairs of your most reverend Paternity (the number of years being added, by which it falls short of a hundred or of one's prayers), both to be here for a while constantly glad, and to be made there gladdest without end. At Prague, in my Monastery of Strahov, the 20th of March, in the year 1627.

CHAPTER XI.

The two Michaelites depart from Antwerp, furnished with letters of recommendation for obtaining some Relic.

[99] The Abbot of Antwerp, desirous of obtaining a Relic Although the Reverend Lord Matthew, the most praiseworthy Abbot of St. Michael, for that zeal of his toward the Relics of St. Norbert, demonstrated by very many proofs, rejoiced not a little, and indeed deservedly congratulated the whole Order, that under the auspices of the most invincible Emperor the Abbot of Strahov, for his monastery of Sion at Prague, had vindicated St. Norbert our Father from the hands of the heretics; yet he did not lay aside all solicitude and hope of at least asking and obtaining some part of the same Holy Relics for his Antwerp church; which reveres and venerates the same not only as its Founder, but also as the Apostle and Father of its faith: in which that it should deservedly rest, there were very many causes, and those of no small moment; namely in which, besides the Apostolate and the Catholic faith asserted in it, there yet remained the most express trophies of the most illustrious victory won over the Tanchelinian heresy. Wherefore he moved every stone, that he might be able to become a partaker of this so pious vow of his: and having conciliated to this end most weighty men, who should approach as intercessors and spokesmen for obtaining these sacred pledges of Blessed Norbert; he willed that those religious Canons of his church whom he was sending, insofar as they should accomplish anything with effect in this business, should be most fully furnished. He gave therefore these subjoined letters to be delivered, both to the Caesarean Majesty, and to the Most Illustrious and Reverend Cardinal von Harrach, Archbishop of Prague, but also to the most worthy Abbot of Strahov, under the same date of year and day as the former. he supplicates the Emperor,

[100] Most invincible Emperor. That your sacred Caesarean Majesty has snatched the most holy Patriarch of our Order, the Apostle of Antwerp, once the Primate of your renowned Germany, the Divine Norbert, from that long and inglorious squalor of his among the heretics, and brought him into light, into a light at length so great for the Church of the West, and in it especially for our Antwerp of your Imperial Marquisate; we cannot but immensely congratulate your most pious Majesty, but also the whole Roman Catholic Church, and especially our Canonical Order; and to the same, for the benefits received of so great merit and eternal memory, give thanks most humbly. Certainly your most sacred Majesty could not more safely have provided for the firmness and stability of your most happy Kingdom (which may it last for ages, and under it may the Catholic Church one day breathe again in universal peace!), than if you bound to yourself from heaven this Primate of your Germany, brought up in the palace of the Emperor Henry IV the Salian, the most prudent Counsellor of the Emperor Lothair, who while he lived deserved very well both of your Empire itself, and of the whole Catholic Church (in whose service he died); and decreed to his glory this triumph of a most solemn Translation, owed by so many titles. I should indeed have wished, I, the most humble Chaplain of your Majesty, to be present at the appointed day at the same, and prostrate in person at your knees to venerate also your most pious Majesty; but on account of my great age, which now runs out into the fifth year above eighty; I have committed my place to two religious Canons of our church of St. Michael at Antwerp, who will present these our letters to your most pious Majesty, and in them our most humble petition and that of our whole Convent of Antwerp; that by the nod of your most serene Majesty we may deserve to be enriched with some at least notable portion of the most holy Relics of St. Norbert. We made also already once no small instance for the same, nay we even implored the help and favor of our Most Serene Prince Albert of most pious memory to that end: but that glory, by which He should wondrously illustrate his Imperial diadem, God reserved for Ferdinand: whom also we humbly trust, for the glory of the Antwerp Church, for the splendor of his Marquisate, for the more inflaming of the wondrous devotion of Christ's faithful in this renowned city toward St. Norbert, for the confusion of the Dutch heretics barking at us from nearby, will graciously condescend to our vow: we who will hold ourselves forever as the devoted clients and intercessors of your most pious Majesty. May God the Best and Greatest ever advance and prosper the glorious endeavors of your most sacred Majesty.

[101] But to the Archbishop he wrote thus: Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord. and the Archbishop of Prague. Whom it has pleased the divine goodness to decree a Triumph to our most holy Parent and the Apostle of our city, Norbert, we have learned with great joy of our heart. We too should have wished, according to our measure, had not greater age opposed, to have been able to honor the same present. We have meanwhile sent two religious Canons of our monastery, to whom we have committed our place, and given in commission, also in person to venerate your most Illustrious and most Reverend Lordship, and to present a humble supplication in the name of ourselves and of our whole Convent, with all exhibition of homages; that by the favor of your same most Illustrious Lordship, we may be able to obtain for our church of St. Michael some part of those sacred Relics: which with all due solemnity, for the splendor of our City, we may replace in the place where his feet stood. For when, five hundred years ago, the venomous error of the heresiarch Tanchelin had eclipsed this renowned Moon of the Belgian sky, and had blinded this little Eye of Cities, Antwerp; St. Norbert by the rays of his sanctity and doctrine led the same back again to the communion of the Catholic faith. But there persists great devotion of Christ's faithful toward this Apostle of their faith, so that his solemnity (which throughout the whole diocese he has under the Office of a Double feast) is celebrated every year with a vast concourse of our whole city; nay, and in the past year, with great piety our Most Serene Princess Isabella, Infanta of the Spains, with her whole Court and Princes, deigned to honor the said festivity, and also the solemn carrying-round of his statue through the city. It would turn to a great increase of this pious devotion, if by the favor and help of your most Illustrious and most Reverend Lordship (which we humbly request) we could be enriched with some portion of the sacred Relics: we who will receive that venerable deposit with that celebrity and triumph which deservedly ought to be expended upon the remains of that blessed Soul: and we will hold ourselves forever devoted in homage to your most Illustrious and most Reverend Lordship; whom that to the great glory of God and the utility of His whole Church the Omnipotent God may deign to preserve and keep safe for many years, we will unceasingly pray.

[102] But to the Reverend Lord Abbot of Strahov these letters were directed: What I lately signified in my letters to your most reverend Lordship, in this most solemn triumph of the Translation, and the Abbot of Strahov. which it has pleased the divine goodness to decree to the glory of St. Norbert our Father, these two religious Confreres of ours will endeavor to carry out, Brother Matthew de Beir and Brother Prosper Moriconi, who in the name of ourselves and of our Convent of Antwerp will assist at the acts of the said triumph, and will devoutly kiss the hands of your most reverend Lordship. We cannot but rejoice with you and congratulate you, for so great a guest with which you are enriched; at whose entrance we do not doubt that, as once at the sheepfold of Laban, at the entrance of Jacob; so also to you, God will give blessing Gen. 30:30. We too made presently great instance, that for the Antwerp church, which he always greatly loved, we might have been able to obtain these sacred pledges of our Blessed Father: and indeed there were very many reasons, on account of which in this our city and this our monastery they ought deservedly to have rested; both because here we adore in the place where his feet stood, which he watered with his holy sweats, made fruitful by his preaching, illustrated by the examples of his holy life, in which he raised again the fallen standard of the Catholic faith; and so we could deservedly say, that we are that Shechem, which the Patriarch Jacob, I mean Christ, gave as a part above his other brethren to his son Joseph, St. Norbert, which he acquired from the hand of the Amorite, that is of Tanchelin, by his sword and bow: both also even on this account it was deservedly owed to us, that here this our holy Patriarch and Apostle of Antwerp is worshipped with a singular concourse of our whole City: nay, and every year, on account of the truth of the venerable Sacrament here asserted against the Sacramentarian heresy of Tanchelin, Pope Gregory XV ennobled our Church with a plenary Indulgence, on the Sunday after the Octave of Corpus Christi; and so made our house, on account of the Goliath laid low by our mystical David, to be immune from tribute. Wherefore we earnestly ask your most reverend Paternity; that, for the increase of the glory of God and the worship of St. Norbert our Father, you would deign to enrich this our church of St. Michael with some notable portion of his sacred Relics: in which pious vow we do not doubt that we shall be heard by your most reverend Paternity and your most religious Convent; we who will pour out continual prayers to God for their safety, and mindful of this immortal benefit, will hold ourselves forever devoted to the homages of your most reverend Lordship, and of your whole Community.

[103] There also added their letters in favor of our Church, to Cardinal von Harrach, Cardinal Alfonso de la Cueva, The Pontifical Nuncios add letters of recommendation, the ordinary Legate of the Catholic Majesty to the Most Serene Isabella the Infanta, etc., and to the Belgian Provinces. But also John Francis of the Counts Guidi del Bagno, Archbishop of Patras, and likewise of Our Most Holy Lord Pope Urban VIII, with the power of a Legate a latere, then to the Belgian Provinces, but now to the Most Christian King of France and Navarre, Apostolic Nuncio, added his own also to the same end, to the Nuncio of the Caesarean Majesty at Vienna. The Reverend and most distinguished man also, the Lord Aubert le Mire, Dean of the Cathedral Church of Antwerp, wrote for the same cause too to the Abbot of Strahov. But the most reverend and most illustrious Lord, the Lord John Malderus, the Dean and the Bishop of Antwerp. Bishop of Antwerp, gave to these our Brethren sent off to Prague his (as they call them) patent letters, secured with his seal, for obtaining some part of these holy Relics for this our Church of St. Michael, thus: John Malderus,

by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See Bishop of Antwerp, to all who shall see these, greeting in the Lord. Since we have understood that the Reverend Lord, the Lord Matthew van Irssel, Abbot of the monastery of St. Michael of the Premonstratensian Order of our City of Antwerp, for the sake of honoring the festal Translation of St. Norbert, the Institutor of the same Order, which will be on the sixth of the Nones of May of this year, has resolved to send two religious Priests of his church, Matthew de Beir and Prosper Moriconi, to the city of Prague; we were unwilling that they should depart without these our letters, by which together with the same Abbot we earnestly ask, that some part of the Relics of the said St. Norbert may be given to these Religious, to be carried to the Antwerp monastery; whereby there may stand attested and renewed in this city the memory, that it was once notably aided by the Apostolic office of the same Saint. For if this be done, in that famous and most ancient Abbey, having its beginning from the Divine Norbert himself, there will be increased, what now much flourishes, the devotion of the people toward the same Saint, whom also throughout our whole Diocese we have already long taken care to be celebrated every year with a double Office. In faith of all and each of which, we have subscribed these with our hand, and ordered our seal to be affixed. Given at Antwerp on the third day of the month of March, in the year of the Lord 1627.

CHAPTER XII.

The two Michaelites, sent from Antwerp to Prague, attend the Translation; nor do they return without Relics.

[104] The delegates from St. Michael undertake the journey into Germany: Furnished with these and other things, the aforesaid Canon-religious from St. Michael, with the happy prayer of their Prelate, and the favorable wishes of their Confreres, who accompanied them with their daily prayers, undertook their journey on the 4th of the Nones of March: and having surveyed the most illustrious and manifold Relics of the Saints both at Maastricht (which is also called Trajectum Superius) and at Cologne Agrippina; with various difficulties of journeys and of times, having embarked on the Rhine, having passed by Bonn, Linz, Andernach, and Koblenz, Boppard (which is now Boppardia), Wesel, and several other cities in the Lower Palatinate, set along the very banks of the Rhine in a most pleasing spectacle, those sailing by; having entered Mainz, the most celebrated city of Germany, they visited there the magnificent Basilica sacred to Blessed Martin, conspicuous with the Archiepiscopal cathedra itself, and notable for various statues and epitaphs of Princes and Prelates. Thence having entered the Main, they came to that city far most renowned,

which lies nearest to the swift Mogus, and having passed through Frankfurt (thus Gunther the Ligurinus describes it) Bright in situation, and frequented by people, and decorated with walls, But it has a rude name: for the Teutonic inhabitant called it Frankfurt: for us let it be allowed in the Latin tongue to have called it the Ford of the Franks. etc.

Thence indeed by land journey, safe and unharmed, on the second weekday after Palm Sunday, they came to Oberzell, which is near Würzburg in Franconia, a most celebrated and most ancient monastery of the Premonstratensian Order. There, treated most well for several days, at Oberzell, through the solemnities of the Easter festivities, it was granted to survey also Würzburg itself: where once, in the very Easter days, St. Norbert our Father, after the Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood taken in a solemn Mass, at Würzburg, gave sight to a blind woman. But after they had visited at Bamberg the sacred Relics of the most holy Henry and Cunegund, Emperors, spouses and virgins, and venerated them in person; having crossed Eger, a frontier city of the Bohemian Kingdom; through ways most difficult on account of the abundance of snows, they came at last to Tepl: where in the most celebrated monastery of the Premonstratensian Canons of the same name set by the city, founded by the most illustrious Prince and Martyr Blessed Hroznata, they were received with incredible kindness. It was permitted to the same in the same monastery to kneel in person at the tomb of Blessed Hroznata, which it has raised in the high Choir of the sacred church, becomingly covered with a covering white below, violet above. Memorable are the things related concerning the same Saint's pious solicitude for his church of Tepl, also by various recent apparitions of his, when, with the bastard of Mansfeld raging there with his troops, he was seen to strike terror into the very sentinels, and to act the guardian of the monastery.

[105] But when the day appointed for the Triumph of St. Norbert gradually drew nearer, after they had for some days experienced the exceedingly singular benevolence toward them of the Prelate of Tepl, far most worthy and an old man altogether venerable, and also of the rest of the Confreres; having arrived at Prague, they at last happily reached Prague, the metropolis of the whole Bohemian kingdom, excellently furnished with very many buildings, with the royal Palace itself, and other wonderful things, on the eighth of the Kalends of May. But in the very Royal monastery of Mount Sion, which, besides the most splendid church, excellently adorned and on every side painted with histories from the life of St. Norbert, the most renowned Abbot Questenberg was now magnificently enlarging with excellent buildings; on the very Kalends of May the Venerable Body of St. Norbert, which we have signified was lately deposited in the Premonstratensian Monastery of the Virgins of Doxan, while meanwhile at Prague the magnificent apparatus of the Triumph was being made; with how great solemnity and triumphal glory, set upon a chariot, namely an honorary carriage altogether white, in the likeness of one Triumphing, with notable pomp and honorific company, they take part on the 1st of May was carried to Prague from the same monastery of Doxan; and near the Vienna gate, between the third and fourth hour after noon, by the Cardinal Archbishop, the Prelates, the Princes, and almost the whole city poured out beyond the gate, was received; and then upon the shoulders of eight mitred Prelates of the white Order, with all the religious Families of the whole city and the whole Clergy conducting it, with also the greatest and most powerful Nobility of the whole kingdom escorting it, and an innumerable multitude of all orders and conditions, which had poured itself out to meet its new future Guardian thereafter, with vast devotion and sense of piety; received the lodging of the first night in the Tein Church sacred to the Divine Mother-Virgin, situated in the marketplace of Old Prague. But with how great a signification of religion all that whole night, which intervened between the first and second of May, and on the 2nd day at the Translation of St. Norbert, which had been decreed for celebrating the triumph of the Translation, by the various religious families of that Triple-City, and first by the venerable Canons of the Premonstratensian Order, with what celebrity of divine Office, with what musical concert the sacred vigil at the most blessed Relics was celebrated; and thereafter with how glorious a pomp the Translation itself was performed, with how notable a musical concert, with how great a multitude of lights; what triumphal arches were erected to our Triumphant one, and with how great glory the holy body was carried into the Strahov monastery of Mount Sion there about the third hour after noon, and his place was made in peace, and his habitation in holy Sion; and what homages of piety, with incredible devotion, were finally frequented there toward the Saint on all the days of the following week; in vain in this Echo of mine with a few little lines and meager characters should I attempt to sketch: especially since already long ago the so great magnificence of that Triumph has most pleasantly pervaded the whole Christian world, as far as it extends on every side; and also has been published likewise at Prague in a most polished and most ornate style, by those whom we lately mentioned, the religious Canons of the Strahov Church, in another book, whose title is "The Octave of St. Norbert Triumphing." Yet this one thing I confidently assert, that Rome never saw any triumph conducted by the subduers of nations, with glory equally as true and solid and merited; as in those days the Christian humility of Norbert triumphed, above all the pride of created magnificence.

[106] But there were present at this triumphal pomp, besides the Cardinal von Harrach, and the Archbishop of Trebizond, the Prelates of other Orders, very many professors of the lower order of the Premonstratensian Family, who had come from everywhere; twelve mitred Abbots of the same Order, with some others of lesser grade. themselves bearing the sacred bier on their shoulders, From the French and Belgian Provinces (because for the same Sunday a general Chapter had been appointed, to be celebrated in the Premonstratensian Arch-monastery, to which several of them had betaken themselves) none there appeared either of the Prelates or of the Canons, those two Religious from St. Michael of Antwerp alone excepted, whom the singular zeal of the Abbot had sent off thither: to whom among other things, this favor also fell, that after those whom we have named, the Prelates of the Order, for a notable part of the triumphal way, they were held worthy, that under the golden canopy, which was carried above by the most powerful Nobility of Bohemia, the Antwerp Religious humbly subjected their necks and shoulders to the most holy body of their Father Norbert, and the same Apostle of Antwerp. But also it often fell to them, those most holy Remains of the blessed soul not only to behold in person, but even with a wondrous sense of piety reverently to handle, and to caress with most devout kisses. How full was it, without doubt, of sweetest consolation, and having devoutly beheld the Relics. to behold that holy mouth of Norbert, which sent forth like showers the eloquence of his wisdom, and which the mellifluous Bernard so revered and venerated, that he did not blush to call it a heavenly pipe! to see those holy shoulders, which so untiringly bore the yoke of the Lord; and against the most powerful blows of swords struck upon them, like adamant, by the virtue of the preserving God, wondrously hardened! to handle those sacred hands, which with so great piety were so often raised to heaven in prayer; with so great purity wrought the sacred mysteries; with so great liberality bestowed aids upon the poor! to venerate and kiss those blessed and beautiful feet, which so untiringly ran to evangelize peace! Moreover, they merited to see and handle the golden ring of our holy Archbishop, together with his Priestly Stole and Maniple of silver weave, whole (which you would wonder at) after the old age of nearly five centuries; besides other parts of his Pontifical vestments, which had lain with the same for almost five hundred years in the tomb.

[107] But that Norbert might declare that rest of his on Mount Sion to be pleasing to him, For St. Norbert, appearing many times, it was reported to us from Prague, that he had shown and shows himself in vision to many: but also, the octave of the Triumphant one being scarcely finished, some miracles too seemed to bud from his sacred bones; so that those also are established to be fountains of salvation, as St. Damascene calls the Relics of the Saints. I will give two of the better-known, and which also were lately communicated with me from the collections of the Reverend Father George, Canon of the Church of Roth of the Premonstratensian Order, and most worthy Procurator of the same in the Caesarean Court for the Circary of Swabia, a Man notable for erudition and prudence. The wife of the Lord Baron von Kolowrat, indeed a high-spirited heroine, while at the end of September of the same year, with the physicians crying out, all hope of safety was denied to the dying woman; turned to the back rail of her little bed, and at the same time poured out into vows and tears, asks from the Heaven-dwellers what the earth-born deny. began to grow famous by miracles. She calls out Norbert with the silent crying-out of her heart, that he himself would come for medicine. He comes when called; immediately she feels help from heaven: the disease flees and with it nearby death: she herself, having recovered her health with her strength, went to the resting-place of the holy bones of her physician Norbert; she acknowledges the help, proclaims it, fulfills her vow: and to the Prelate of Strahov she narrates these very things, affirming that she was prompted in conscience to narrate them. A little boy of about four years, of a most honorable matron (she is the wife of the Quaestor the Lord Count von Slawata), after long pains of toothache, a dying woman healed, so great and so intolerable, that for a whole octave the boy of an age for sleep had not taken even a drop of sleep into his eyes, with vows is carried to the church of Strahov. The mother, a certain most religious

widow having been taken into the society of piety, prostrates herself in prayer: the little boy is immediately seized with a most profound sleep, so that he could not be roused by any motion or shout. And so after long prayers, while they carry out the sleeping child, and, having mounted a carriage, are conveyed home, behold, suddenly the little boy, awakened, cries out; with all astonished; "Truly," saying, "lady mother, St. Norbert is a citizen of heaven." And again, his little eyes closed in sleep, he sleeps until the eighth hour of the evening: and a boy with a toothache, at which at last, awakened again; "Powerful," he says, "is the physician St. Norbert." Nor thereafter did his pain return to his teeth. These and many other things of this kind, others will sometime give in a more polished style; for me it is enough to have recounted these two; if yet I shall add this also, from the same Reverend Father George: that there is an assertion from the Bohemian Chancellery, that within this octave of the Translation easily six hundred heretics were converted to the faith: so that God willed to illustrate the Apostle of the faith with miracles of faith (which certainly are far more excellent than corporeal ones). In which kind, neither does this seem to be passed over in silence: that in that very year, the 5th of November, there came to the Monastery of Mount Sion a most noble Captain from the camp of the Lord Wallenstein, and many heretics converted. a Lutheran born in Saxony, for the sake of conversion to the faith. He affirmed, that he had performed the first Embassy to the people of Magdeburg for the restitution of the most holy Relics; he, he says, as the best Lutheran, and who therefore was most fit to deal with the people of Magdeburg, Lutherans there. Behold how St. Norbert repays the office bestowed upon him by the soldier for the sake of conversion. But the family of this Captain is von Brandstein. But these are enough; let us return to the track.

[108] Those religious Canons sent off from St. Michael, because they knew it to be the other part of their commission, were to apply the greatest diligence they could, for obtaining some share of the holy Relics; when to that end both by themselves and through other great men, and chiefly the Cardinal von Harrach, they had applied whatever means they knew: The Michaelites obtain a part of the Relics, although the Abbot of Strahov, the guardian of this sacred treasure, altogether desired the integrity of the same to be safeguarded, for several reasons moving to this very thing; yet he, moved by the importunate prayers of the supplicants and also by reasons, before all others to whom anything of the same sacred Relics fell, to the said Commissaries of the church of St. Michael, after bestowing very many tokens of benevolence and kindness, during those nineteen days in which they stayed at Prague, with his paternal blessing and a not small number of silver coins, such as were scattered in the triumphal pomp, to be distributed in these parts; bestowed piously upon them as they departed a notable quantity of the sacred Mumia (as they call it), or the most holy flesh of the most blessed Norbert, partly hardened into pieces, partly dissolved into sacred ashes, and among it certain shavings of the sacred bones, as great a quantity as one might conveniently hold in the hollow of both hands. And because among those venerable flowings-down of the holy body, not all his bones, even the most minute, could equally be sought out; nay, among them, those which both the Prelate of Osterhofen in Bavaria, and the Provost of Neustift in the same near Freising, obtained, were not small little bones of the same St. Norbert; so also among those, in which a joint of the foot etc. which fell to our Church, besides some smaller shavings of bones, we received another there, a greater one: which, by the judgment and attestation of several most expert physicians consulted upon it, is asserted to be the Joint of the next-to-last toe of one or other foot of St. Norbert. Besides, the said Abbot bestowed upon the same Brothers no small part of that inner garment, or Priestly Alb, which had been edged with golden fringes, and had adhered intimately to the holy flesh for so many centuries; to which also here and there are seen to adhere not small parts of the same holy flesh, mortified. He gave moreover another part large enough, of a yellowish color, which is thought to have been a portion of his Pontifical Dalmatic itself: but also a fragment of the wooden Pastoral Staff which he had placed beside him in the sepulchre.

[109] the same, having received letters from the Archbishop The Most Illustrious Archbishop of Prague, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church von Harrach, because he had wished to enrich our Antwerp church with an even greater treasure of the holy Relics, gave these letters to the Abbot of St. Michael, full of most kind dignation, written thus on the 11th of May. The letters of your most reverend Lordship, most welcome to us, brought to us by your religious Canons, we have received, on reading which we have understood, with great joy, your most holy intent, and your most ardent devotion toward the glorious Relics of the most holy Norbert, Patriarch of the sacred Premonstratensian Order, once Archbishop of Magdeburg, Primate of Germany, but now most glorious Patron of this our Kingdom of Bohemia. But as to your petition by reason of the Relics of St. Norbert, to which petition it seems to us that assent must most greatly and most liberally be given; we conferred that very thing with the Lord Abbot at Strahov; but for reasonable causes, besides the dust from the sacred Relics of St. Norbert, through the aforesaid Lord Canons we could send nothing for this time. Which dust, no doubt accepting with devout mind, you will meanwhile take in good part with grateful soul; for, God granting, in a short space of time, we hope to send you other Relics of St. Norbert. Meanwhile, on account of your supreme devotion toward St. Norbert, our supreme and glorious Patron of this Kingdom of Bohemia, giving thanks, we pray all prosperity to your most reverend Lordship.

[110] His own letters also the Most Ample Abbot of Strahov added, by which he signifies and attests that he is sending Particles of the sacred garments, also of his Foot, The Abbot also writes, but not through them. and finally shavings of bones, and certain flowings-down of the most holy flesh; in this tenor: Reverend Lord, and in Christ Confrere to be honored. Those two whom from the number of your Sons, for your most zealous piety toward our common Father, your Reverend Paternity lately sent off hither in your stead to the ornament of his triumph, we received with joy; and in the manner in which it was then permitted, both most busy on every side, and beset by a frequency of guests, we treated them. We wrote back nothing by those departing, because we understood they would return home later, and that we should by no means at that time be free for writing. Now therefore, since we believe they have arrived there again, or will arrive presently; we send at the same time our letters, by which we both give thanks for their religious homage, and bear witness to their diligence. With what success and how great joy we conducted the triumph of our and so great a Father, your Reverend Paternity will already, both from their own mouth, and from the booklet sent by our men some eight days hence, have abundantly learned. But we grieve, that we could not return the like for so great a homage and your most pious desire, and transmit some notable part of the sacred Relics. For although both your petition was of the greatest to us; and we vehemently and in every way endured as importunate the petitioners who came; and so many and so just causes of asking seemed at once; more and juster there were (with leave for the word) of denying. These the booklet (of which above) either says or implies. What? Should Norbert be cheaper to us, than Benno to the Bavarians? And yet not even to the Pontiff, much asking, did their Prince will that even a crumb of them be given. Shall we give to the Antwerpers? Prémontré, Cologne, the Cleves people, others how shall we repel? Behold, how many have the same most ample titles of demanding! The Elector Prince of Cologne indeed himself a notable part of the Relics, with letters also written for this very thing and causes prescribed for the petition, already long ago sought. If we give to one, so many others and so great will complain of injury at being passed over: if to all, where will Norbert be? Antwerp (I hope) will pardon; since not even his own and my own most dear native land, the Cologne of the Ubii, even with the Prince demanding, took anything away. Now moreover, what reason before this compelled us to be unwilling, the sacrosanct authority of the Apostolic See to the world forbids us to will. Yet they whom your Reverend Paternity sent off bring back not nothing from us. Particles of the sacred garments, also of his Foot, and finally shavings of Bones and certain flowings-down of the most holy flesh, we have handed over to be carried and offered in our stead. Which (since nothing else is permitted) that you would hold welcome, we ask again and again. May God the Best and Greatest console and sustain your Reverend Paternity, laden with the burden of years, with His rod and His staff. At Prague, in the monastery of Strahov, the 7th of August 1627.

[111] Furnished with these sacred pledges, precious above all the treasures of the world, the said religious Canons from St. Michael, when they had stayed nineteen days at Prague, They, having departed from Prague on the 4th of the Ides of May began to retrace their journey to their desired homeland: and having surveyed on that very day the Benedictine Monastery of St. Ivan, which is in a valley, situated in a wonderful manner among rough crags near Beraun, and three miles distant from Prague, before the venerable Relics of the same Saint, frequented by much visiting of pilgrims, and illustrious for miracles, in the chapel of the same Saint, hewn out of the very living rock, they performed divine service. St. Ivan himself was sprung from the Kings of Dalmatia; who, having trodden underfoot the honors and luxury of the world, and spurned diadem and sceptre, led there a heavenly life familiar to the Heaven-dwellers, in this wrestling-ground of his contests, carrying off very many trophies from the infernal foe. There is to be seen there even now the admirable cell of this holy Hermit, often privy to his groans and tears, and other relics left of the traces of his sanctity. Thence within two days they sought again Tepl praised above, where the most worthy Abbot, a man venerable for old age and gray hairs, with an affection more than fatherly, in the manner of his own sons, received them anew. On the 15th of the Kalends of June they came to the Monastery of Chotieschau of the Premonstratensian Virgins, they return through Bavaria. founded likewise by the Blessed Prince Hroznata and his illustrious sister Blessed Woizlava (whose tomb is seen there). But on the twenty-first of May, having gone out of Bohemia, they were honorably received into Bavaria toward evening, and so on the following day, on which fell the vigil of the Pentecostal Solemnity; at Windberg, a most celebrated Monastery of the Premonstratensian Order. But why through Bavaria, Swabia, Alsace, Lorraine, etc., they set their journey into Brabant, there were several causes: and chiefly these, that here there was less danger, and by the same labor there would occur to be surveyed some most illustrious monasteries of the white Order; that, what very many things worthy of mention in them offered themselves, they might note these. While meanwhile they survey these; let us for a while revisit some other Brothers of our Order, and among them, our St. Michael of Antwerp; and let us describe what was their feeling amid these so great joys of their triumphing Parent.

CHAPTER XIII.

What was meanwhile done at Antwerp, and how the Delegates returned thither.

[112] It was certainly the part of well-born sons, while the Translation of their Parent was being made with so great glory, to exult also with wondrous joy of spirit in the Lord; The Translation of St. Norbert a cause of great joy in the Order, that after so many centuries in which he had lain hidden in darkness, He had deigned to bring forth into light his most sacred Body, by which, as a most pleasing lodging of the blessed soul,

as an instrument, God had already long ago often used for accomplishing great and wonderful things for the glory of His name. For how should they not exult and joyfully leap up, even the lowest feet and the other members of the body, when God deigned to raise up from that long imprisonment of his, and the inglorious squalor among the enemies of our faith, the head of our Joachim, of our most holy Leader I say, and Prince of the white soldiery, Norbert. This mystical body of the white Order was pervaded, with a wondrous sense of piety, by the most pleasing fame of its translated Parent; and so in all places one could see the gladdest countenance of the monasteries leaping with spiritual joy. In various places (as is established concerning the Westphalian and Swabian Circaries and others) on the day on which at Prague he was being carried into Mount Sion with a most solemn triumph, and than which the Church scarcely saw any greater in the translation of any Saint; the monasteries of the same Provinces, with a certain most pleasant resounding, exhibited as it were a kind of Echo. Hence in various places there were also committed to print Verses and Plaudits, witnesses of this joy. But also in the Monastery of Roth, most observant of regular discipline, by the work of the learned Father Martin Merz, Canon and Prior of the same Monastery, there was published "St. Norbert, Triumphing in Life and Translation," composed in the best spirit for fostering piety, for the use of the Novitiate of the common Swabian Province (of which the same most religious man is Director), and published in print by John Schroter at Ravensburg.

[113] But what amid all these things did our St. Michael of Antwerp? Did he who paved the way for our holy Apostle to preach the Gospel of Christ, especially at Antwerp, humbled the glorious ones of the earth, bore the most holy standard of the Cross for enlarging the bounds of the Church, show that no portion of this joy looked toward him? By no means indeed. For although in his Church (as also in most others of this Province) on the day on which at Prague this solemnity was being done, it was deliberately abstained from the same; because, as is wont to happen, with hindrances occurring, the day of the Triumph could have been deferred, in which case we should have been commemorating a Translation not yet performed; yet here no occasion was passed over, by which the Translation of St. Norbert might be set forth to the people of Antwerp, who are most devoted to the same their Saint, Guardian, and Apostle, where the Saint's triumph over Tanchelin both here and elsewhere, often before the assembly. It is solemn in this our church of St. Michael every year, on the third Sunday after Pentecost, namely that which most closely follows the Octave of Corpus Christi, festively to commemorate the glorious Triumph of St. Norbert over the sacramentarian heresy of Tanchelin, cut out: which that it might be more diligently frequented by the pious faithful, Our Most Holy Lord Pope Gregory XV on the 7th day of February in the year 1623 had granted a plenary Indulgence, to all who on that same Sunday should piously visit the same Church of St. Michael. Nay, and the Most Reverend General of the whole Premonstratensian Order, the Lord Peter Gosset (who now governs the same most prudently and most holily) lately by a special diploma, granted that, in the likeness of a Triple feast (as they call it in the Premonstratensian Breviary) in the same church the Office of the most holy Sacrament, the daily task of the Blessed Virgin being omitted, could be sung, with a special Commemoration of St. Norbert added, together with this Prayer approved to that end by the same Most Reverend Lord: O God, who didst will Blessed Norbert, thy Confessor and Pontiff, is commemorated every year: to be the Champion of thy admirable Sacrament, grant we beseech, that what once through thee he could, when about to die, he may now from heaven, immortal, effect. Through our Lord etc. There was therefore in the church of St. Michael, on this very Sunday after the Octave of Corpus Christi, as always with a vast, so this year, on account of the most celebrated memory of the recently performed Translation, with by far the greatest concourse and devotion of the people, this Norbertine Triumph celebrated.

[114] and the feast was kept more solemnly. Another occasion again of commemorating this most celebrated Translation offered itself on the very feast-day of St. Norbert, which both at other times very solemnly; so this very year in several Churches of the Order, on account of this Translation, was celebrated much more festively. The concourse of pious citizens was vast, redoubling their necessities to the Apostle of the Antwerpers: who not only on the very feast-day piously visited our Church of St. Archangel; but also through all the days of the following Octave, continued their devotion there: and chiefly on the fifth weekday, which was the 15th day of July, on which a Station was kept in the chapel of St. Martin. It is very old, situated to the North, and adjacent to the cemetery of the Church, held in great veneration even for this cause, that there our holy Father is believed to have performed divine service: wherefore also by the memory of our elders, the vows of the pious are wont here to be conceived; as also we have seen there offerings of wax from time to time of those, who either in their afflictions implored help through the merits of St. Norbert, or had experienced it in fact. Nay, even of old that place was so wont to be venerable to our predecessors, that always the Brothers, having gone out from refection from the refectory, used to proceed thither conventually to render thanks. But for increasing the worship of the faithful people toward this holy place, the Bishop of Antwerp for some years had granted Indulgences of 40 days, to those piously visiting the same at certain times.

[115] On the Sunday which was the Octave of the Feast, but the 18th of the month, with a plenary Indulgence a solemn Procession through the City, with the venerable Sacrament, was appointed: for which, while the sacred apparatus is being arranged according to custom, the order of the narration requires, that we for a while revisit our Brothers, sent off from St. Michael to Prague, whom we lately left in the Bavarian monasteries of the Order; and, as they retrace their journey with the sacred pledges themselves of St. Norbert, accompany them with pious devotion. They had arrived at Windberg on the very vigil of the sacred Pentecostal solemnity: Meanwhile the Michaelites and then on the fourth weekday they came to St. Engelmar, distant a mile thence (who lived in that place a most holy Hermit, and innocently slaughtered fell asleep) with the Abbot himself, who was going thither to perform divine service solemnly in Pontificals. On the twenty-seventh of May they came to Osterhofen, having surveyed various monasteries of their Order, which is an excellent monastery of the Premonstratensian Order, adjacent to the city of the same name: and having passed through, on the very feast of the Holy Trinity, on which the city-perambulating Feasts of the City of Antwerp are celebrated, the city of Landshut, (which is a not uncomely city of Upper Bavaria on the river Isar) on the thirty-first of May to Neustift, likewise a famous Monastery of the Premonstratensian Canons near Freising, they came; and conducted by the Lord John George Purcher, Dean of the Cathedral Church, and by the Deans of the Collegiate of St. Andrew, obtained from the same various pledges of sacred Relics; and among them, some particles of SS. Corbinian and Lambert, Bishops of Freising, as also of St. Walpurga, the Divine Guardian of the Antwerpers. Munich, which is the seat of the Dukes of the Bavarians, and notable for their Palace, they reached on the fourth of June: and having surveyed what things there were worthy of sight, also in the chief church they venerated the tomb of St. Benno, Bishop of Meissen (whom from Saxony as the new Guardian of Bavaria, presented with several Relics, not so long ago the most pious Duke of the Bavarians, William, had brought), adorned with illustrious work for the glory of the Saint; and divine service having been performed before the same, having entered upon the journey to Augsburg, they reached Augsburg of the Vindelici itself, on the eighth day of the month: on the ninth they come to Ursperg, the renowned Monastery of the Premonstratensian Order; and there, by the munificence of the very reverend and most ample Lord Vitus, far most deserving Abbot of the same church, and best patron of our endeavors for illustrating the Order, they obtain a notable part of the sacred bones of Blessed Grimo, the second Provost of Ursperg, resting there. There remains even now in the same monastery the very autograph of the Chronicle of Conrad of Lichtenau of Ursperg, which is immune from those very many faults, with which men of base faith afterward sprinkled it: which for the honor of the monastery of Ursperg, and for the immortal memory of the same Conrad, a man altogether excellent, and for the common good of the literary Republic, it would be desirable should sometime come into the light from the faith of the autograph itself, together with the vindications of the same Conrad, and also the Life, which most learnedly compiled the Reverend Father Brother Jerome Spengler, Canon of the same church.

[116] the journey through Swabia having been set, But come, let us survey the rest of the Swabian monasteries with these our Brothers, which they passed through: and chiefly Marchtal or Rockenburg, altogether beautiful and excellent: where our Brothers, having experienced wondrous kindness toward themselves, on the fifteenth day, came to Roth, which itself too is by far the most religious monastery of the Swabian Circary. Here in the monastery, besides the sacred bones of Blessed Odimon, the most worthy Abbot of the same church, of which also they were given a small particle; it was granted to venerate in person, and with an excellent sense of piety to caress, the venerable Remains, fragrant in a wondrous manner, and beyond nature, of William of Roth, Canon of holy memory: who not so long ago, namely in the year 1688, on the 5th of the Kalends of March (I use the words of the eulogy which the holy Brother has there for an epitaph) greater in virtue than in age, worthier of heaven than of earth, a flower among thorns, and a lily among flowers, flew away to the heavens. Enriched with a part of his sacred Relics, for our Church of St. Michael, having at last departed from Roth on the 16th of the month, they sought Weissenau, likewise an excellent monastery of the Premonstratensian Canons. Thence, having surveyed also the excellent Benedictine monastery of Weingarten, and the treasures of most illustrious Relics, and among them by far the richest in the hand of the Protomartyr Stephen, after visiting various monasteries there, having departed: to the Sorethan monastery of the Premonstratensian Order they came on the 18th of June; thence to Marchtal of the Premonstratensian Order they are conveyed on the 22nd of June, where flourished the most worthy Provost of this monastery, (who first ruled it most holily) Eberhard of holy memory; who, of the most noble family of the Wolfeggs, leading an Angelic life on earth, ended it there by a blessed death; and in the sixth year after his happy departure, in his tomb, with the fingers of the right hand raised in the manner of one blessing and incorrupt, seemed as it were to give a blessing.

[117] On the 23rd of the Month, having surveyed in passing the famous Benedictine Monastery of Zwiefalten, on the twenty-fifth day they enter the Cell of All Saints, likewise a Premonstratensian monastery, which they call Allerheiligen. The same Cell of All Saints was translated, from its old seat in the Black Forest, to the very city of Oberkirch, where in the chief church, which is subject to the same monastery, according to the primeval institute of the white Order, our men discharge all the duties of the Apostolic life. Thence indeed on the 27th of June, which was a Sunday, toward evening having entered Strasbourg, in the Commandery of the Knights of Malta there (where there were very many heads of Saints to see, and also some whole bodies) they were kindly treated. But on the twenty-ninth day they came to Saverne in Alsace, a city so fortified, that lately the bastard of Mansfeld, having attempted it with a long siege, could not take it. On the day after the Kalends of July, having passed by Nancy, toward evening they came safe to St. Mary Major, the new Premonstratensian monastery translated from the woods to Pont-à-Mousson: and having passed beyond by a difficult way the forests of the Ardennes and the barren field of the Duchy of Luxembourg; on the ninth of July, by a very dangerous journey, to Leffe, which is near Dinant, a Church of the Canons of the Premonstratensian Order; and thence

having embarked on the Meuse, they glided to Namur: whence to Floreffe, a most flourishing monastery in the County of Namur, they came on the 10th of July, which was the vigil of the festivity of St. Norbert our Father. They celebrated there the Office of their holy Father, and experienced the supreme kindness of the Abbot: who also willed those sacred Relics of St. Norbert which they were carrying with them, to be reverently carried with a procession to his church. To Brussels at last in Brabant, they reach Brussels in the 4th month, on the fifteenth day of July, having entered sound and unharmed, they had nothing more first to do, than to confer about the whole success of the same with the Vicar of the Abbot General in the Circaries of Brabant and Frisia, the Abbot of Park, whose blessing also having been sought, they had begun that journey of theirs of this sacred pilgrimage nearly four months before: and having found there opportunely their own Prelate of St. Michael, present there for the common affairs of the homeland and the Order, and already computing the days and hours of their return, they suffused him with wondrous joy; as also the Prior of the same church, and on the 17th of June at Antwerp. who, having accompanied the Prelate, was then also staying at Brussels: with whom on the seventeenth day of July, of our St. Archangel, they entered the Antwerp church, during the very (which, for the Octave day of the feast of St. Norbert and the Plenary Indulgence promulgated there, were being solemnly done) first Vespers, with the incredible congratulation and joy of all their Brothers.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Feast of the Saint kept more solemnly than usual. Preparations for the translation of the Relics brought.

[118] This most desired arrival of the most dear Brothers brought it about, that this Octave day of the solemnity of St. Norbert, much more celebrated than the first day of the Feast, and on account of the solemn carrying of the Sacrament through the city on that day, passed off much most pleasantly. Hence various choirs of musical concerts, most ingeniously arranged through the various galleries of the church (of which it has very many above), The Octave of St. Norbert is celebrated most solemnly resounded with a most pleasing and almost celestial melody the Nativity of St. Norbert, in the solemn Office of the Mass and of Vespers and Lauds (which on account of the Prelate's absence was completed by the Prior of the place). Those who on that day preached from the pulpit before a most crowded audience, had nothing more first to do, than to belch forth (as they say) with full mouth to the people of Antwerp, most eager for sacred novelties of this kind, what they had learned from our returning Brothers concerning the immense glory and pomp of their translated Apostle: and chiefly the Lord Norbert van Couwerven, ordinary preacher, who before the solemn Sacrifice at the ninth morning hour gave a sermon, excellently discoursed on the Translation; and for the celebrating that same day through the city of a solemn procession with the most holy Sacrament, notably applied to the Antwerp church the sacred history of Rebecca from Genesis, who showed with great joy to her parents and household the jewels which she had received from Eliezer, the servant of Abraham: which when, through our mystical Eliezer Norbert, the most faithful servant of the supreme Abraham, in the extermination of heresy, the jewels of the great restored Catholic religion, and among them that most excellent treasure of the militant Church, the most august Sacrament of the Altar, it had received; that very thing it today in congratulation, having called together all its neighbors and kin, in the most solemn procession of the Sacrament shows through the city.

[119] But the order of those proceeding here was this. The standard of the Abbatial Cross all the Lay Brothers and Novices that there are, and a procession is instituted, and thereafter all in order the Canons of the same church, clad in surplices with almuces, follow the Cantors preceding in solemn Copes. To the same succeed from all the regular Families of the whole City two Religious each, who come to honor the Feast of St. Norbert. After them, under a baldachin, of red silk edged with golden fringes, which six of the more honored of the Confraternity of Swordsmen (which has as Patron Michael, our commander-in-chief of the heavenly soldiery) carry in their solemn robes, two Canons of our church, clothed in golden chasubles over their Albs, reverently carry those sacred Relics of our church, of which we made mention above. These are becomingly enclosed in an ark, lined within with white linen and without with red silk, adorned with golden fringes, from whose four corners four branches of little flowers of whitening silver rise up, which above come together into a sheaf of lilies, from which below a little halo hangs over the very sacred case. There followed a not small number of youths and little boys, with nine choirs of Angels going before, separated into nine troops, representing the nine choirs of the three Angelic Hierarchies: who, each in a habit of linen and silk, and some adorned with golden collars and necklaces, were conspicuous with wings and the distinctive marks of their choir; and after each choir a Nymph, adorned with more beautiful array, walked in the likeness of the Virgin Mother of God; who herself too should bear the marks of the same Choir, the wings removed, and should have two holy Virgins as attendants. To each Choir, through some Angel of the same Order, was borne a Title affixed to a painted little spear.

[120] After these walked, each adorned in his own array, Michael, with the Saints and the chief Virtues, Gabriel, and Raphael: then in the guise of winged Nymphs followed the active Life, with her marks of the works of mercy, her crown wreathed with silver rays; and also the contemplative Life, bearing a winged flaming heart, who had golden rays on her head. Behind followed the two figures of these Lives from the Gospel, Martha and Magdalene. Then came forth, girt with a virgin choir of very many holy women, Blessed James, a Novice of the Premonstratensian Order, notable in the Premonstratensian habit, and bearing on his head a little crown of linen flowers, mixed white, mixed red. But also the three Vows of Religion, excellently distinguished by their marks, led as many captives in triumph, the enemies of salvation; Poverty, the World; Chastity, the Flesh with Desire; Obedience, the Devil. Hence from the Premonstratensian Order walked a choir of several Saints, among whom various Abbots, and also Bishops, Blessed Ludolph and Isfrid, conspicuous in their white cassocks below, and above in rochets and mozzettas (as they call them), nay and excellently adorned mitres. After them an Angel came forth, bearing a branch of olive; with St. Norbert, but also another, who on a Shield, adorned with flowers, ivy, and foil, bore the insignia of St. Norbert; whose sides on either side were closed, in the likeness of two nymphs, Faith and Patience, on account of the motto which was added to the same Insignia of the Saint, "By Faith and Patience." There succeeded Heribert and Hedwig, the parents of St. Norbert, surrounded by their honorary companions. At last, between four Pontiffs, Gelasius II, Calixtus II, Honorius II, and Innocent II (who were notable in red linen cassocks, and above in white rochets, likewise red mozzettas edged with white furs and joined with little golden knots, and at the same time a fitting little cap likewise edged with furs), in the middle St. Norbert himself walked, having a white linen cassock, as also a mozzetta variegated with little golden stars, and a linen rochet; notable for the Archiepiscopal pallium at his shoulders, he carried on the one side the cross of the Primate, on the other a reliquary-shape made of wood; and drove before him in triumph, captive and bound, Tanchelin and the Demon.

[121] These twin Angels with torches followed: but also various parts of the white Habit were carried by various Angels; so that this one bore the tunic, and the Mother of God. that one the scapular, another the hood, a fourth the biretta, a fifth the almuce, a sixth the cope: whom, between SS. John the Baptist and the Lawgiver of the Premonstratensian Order in a most glorious guise, followed the Premonstratrix of the white Order and designator of its habit, the Mother of God. At last, with the three Apostles Peter, James, and John going before, between Moses and Elijah, Christ the Lord, in a snowy garment, his face flashing with golden rays, Transfigured, closed the column. Him a flock of choicest boys, after this was carried the statue of the Saint, for this end gladly and liberally adorned by their parents out of their pious worship toward St. Norbert; among some torches, carried on the shoulders of four of the more honorable citizens, received the statue of St. Norbert, almost equaling a man in size; which, distinguished below with little golden stars on a white linen cassock, but clothed above in a fine rochet, with a pectoral cross, had a mozzetta likewise variegated with gilded stars, and above the Archiepiscopal Pallium, gleaming with sparkling necklaces: the right hand sustained a gilded reliquary, the left the Primatial cross with a little branch laden with olive berries; but on the head a mitre, radiant with gold and gems. After the statue itself very many burning torches were carried by the more honorable citizens, which there followed, with two larger silver candlesticks going before carried by Acolytes, and also Thurifers following continually ministering incense, and finally the Venerable Sacrament, the most holy Sacrament itself; which, with the ministers of the Altar going before in golden Dalmatics, the Prior of the monastery carried, under a baldachin likewise of red silk edged with golden fringes, which was carried above by six likewise of the senior Deans of the Confraternity of Swordsmen. The most holy Sacrament itself from behind received, both from the Clergy and from the Magistracy various ones, and also from the common people a most crowded throng of the pious, redoubling their vows to the Saint, and intimating their necessities: nay, and in the same procession a certain person, Someone's arm is healed. who for a long time had borne an arm infirm and afflicted, and had resolved to accompany that procession out of her worship toward the Saint, is said to have felt his most present help (as also others at other times); and not long after, conscience prompting her, she suspended an arm of virgin wax, as an offering, at the altar of St. Norbert.

[122] But someone might deservedly wonder, why in this solemn procession those sacred pledges of the Relics of St. Norbert were not borne out in the pomp, The Translation of the Relics themselves to be commemorated, which the day before we said had been carried hither by our Brothers returning from Prague; which was done altogether deliberately, both because by the Decree of the Sacrosanct Council of Trent, session 25, on the invocation, veneration, and Relics of the Saints, in setting forth the same for public veneration, a previous visitation and approbation of the Ordinary was required, which in so brief a time could not have been done; and because it was fitting, besides this solemnity of the Nativity of St. Norbert, that a certain special one for commemorating his Translation be decreed, which should be as it were a certain Echo of that Prague one; and should declare to posterity by some express sign, in what manner those venerable Relics, precious above gold and topaz, had come to this church. Wherefore the Prelate of St. Michael, having communicated the counsel with the Bishop of Antwerp, appointed the day for commemorating this Translation, the fifth of September, which was the first Sunday of the same month, with all the days of the following week; insofar as it should seem to exhibit a certain Echo of that most celebrated Prague octave. it is appointed for the first Sunday of September. Very many of the pious citizens, excellently devoted to St. Norbert, would have wished that festal fires be kindled through the city on the vigil of this solemnity and on the eve of the feast itself, that the thunders of larger cannon be discharged in triumph, that the same be variegated with missile fires scattered into the sky, as with so many new stars; but the crash of the arms resounding around, and the enemy raised up nearby on account of Grol lately captured, brooding over, made apparatus of this kind of outward triumph be changed into exercises of piety, for appeasing through the merits of St. Norbert the wrath of the offended Deity. To which end also the Most Reverend Bishop himself to all Christ's faithful, with a 40 days' Indulgence, throughout that whole Octave

piously visiting the church of St. Michael, and in it the Relics of St. Norbert, had granted an Indulgence of forty days: which Relics also, wrapped in silk veils, and enclosed in a silver casket (which, made skillfully enough, marked externally with certain sacred histories from Scripture, with some Angels above bearing the signs of the Lord's Passion, and adorned with a sheaf of linen little flowers), through the Prior of the house and those Confreres who had carried the same from Prague, the Abbot of St. Michael, with a solemn supplication both in his own name and in that of the Convent, exhibited to the same Bishop to be visited and approved.

[123] But these sacred Pledges having been diligently inspected, meanwhile, these offered to him the attestations having been seen, and the same Religious heard and examined, in an assembly of several weighty Theologians convened for this, who reverently kissed the same Relics, and namely that sacred little bone of the Saint's feet; the same Bishop, having praised the diligence of those Confreres, who had obtained that treasure truly not small; by the Diploma written below approved the same, and decreed that they should be publicly set forth for the devotion of the faithful, in this tenor: John Malderus, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See Bishop of Antwerp, to all who shall see these, Greeting in the Lord. The Reverend Lord Abbot and the Convent of the Monastery of St. Michael of this city of Antwerp have set forth to us, that to their Monastery from the Reverend Lord Abbot of the Monastery of Strahov of the city of Prague have been sent certain Relics of St. Norbert, the Bishop duly visits and approves. namely particles of the sacred garments, also of his foot, and finally shavings of bones, and certain flowings-down of the flesh; desiring that the same Relics be venerated with the honor and worship that befits; they have demanded of Us, that we should recognize the same, and grant that they could be set forth to the people to be honored. We, for our office gladly intent on those things, by which Christ's faithful may be incited to the imitation and due worship of the Saints reigning with Christ, the said Relics having been seen, and the venerable Brothers Matthew de Beir and Prosper Moriconi, Religious of the aforesaid monastery of St. Michael, having been heard and examined, who declared under oath that they had received the aforesaid Relics from the aforesaid Abbot of Strahov and faithfully carried them to Antwerp; having moreover taken into counsel Theologians and other pious men; we have judged that the aforesaid Relics are to be held as true and genuine; and that there is to be paid to the same that worship and veneration, which to sacred pledges of this kind is deservedly owed, and has always been applied in the Catholic Church; and so that they may be publicly set forth to the people to be venerated, we grant by these presents. Given at Antwerp, in our Episcopal Palace, on the twenty-seventh day of the month of August, in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred likewise twenty-seven.

[124] On the very vigil of the solemnity, all the walls and columns of our church having been adorned again with precious carpets, And a throne is erected for St. Norbert triumphing: and chiefly the very choir with most beautiful splendid hangings of linen, whose chief altar too, as also the rest of the whole church, and chiefly that of St. Norbert himself, shone with a more beautiful apparatus than they are wont; in the very middle of the Church a new throne for St. Norbert triumphing stood erected; a work indeed not costly, but neat and most weighty, which for several days the hands of not only one family, but also of several religious Congregations, gladly consecrating their little labor to St. Norbert, had piously occupied. A boarding was laid beneath below, to which all round one ascended by a single step, strewn on every side with red cloth: four larger columns with architraves and bases, set apart at the four corners at equal distance, stood upon the lower boarding of the steps, which were so wholly clothed neatly with the leaves of ivy, that nothing of the columns appeared, and above, surrounded by various spirals of foil, they glittered. At the very capitals of the columns, each one, among some smaller candles of virgin wax, hung a shield two cubits high of oval form, itself too clothed with ivy with foil gleaming through; from which above, standing upon a bronze candlestick, a larger wax candle rose up. The subject of the shields, from the inner aspect of the throne, were four emblems concerning St. Norbert, with mottoes painted on each. I. St. Norbert, the Chariot of Israel and its Driver. The hieroglyph was Elijah ascending into heaven in a fiery chariot. II. St. Norbert, like a flower of Roses. III. The peace-bearing Dove of Noah, which in the hieroglyph bore a little branch of olive. IV. St. Norbert like the lilies, which are by the passing of the water. But from that face which was turned toward the spectators, four points from the Life of the Saint were seen depicted in circles, as his conversion through the thunderbolt, the bestowal of the white Habit, the handing-over of the Rule, and the leading-back of the Antwerpers to the faith.

[125] The whole tabernacle above, with a roof of cords wondrously bent among themselves and clothed with ivy, was covered with many little foiled ribbons gleaming through, and variegated with flowers and little stars and little clouds of linen tufts, rising into a pyramidal figure; at whose top, on this side the Mark of the Illustrious Counts of Gennep (which, on the faith of some old manuscripts, we have discussed in our Notes on his manuscript Life to have been the family arms of St. Norbert), with the motto added, "By Faith and Patience"; but on that side the arms of the Abbey of St. Michael, with its ancestral symbol, "Moderately," were seen, in the same manner as the shields, enclosed in ivy garlands. These are, on a red field, a broader silver cross, projecting in a point in its middle, from whose joining four golden sceptres issue crosswise: but upon the shield, which is sustained on this side by a Crozier, on that by a Cross, an Abbatial mitre rests. The middle of the throne, between the four said columns, the Altar occupied, on either side beautifully clothed with antependium-cloths of gold embroidery, and strewn with its veils neatly ending in dentated crests. Upon it stood placed, between two larger silver candlesticks of vast weight, recently fabricated for this solemnity, and likewise two silver little baskets full of flowers, the very blessed Statue of St. Norbert, newly fashioned for the solemnity of this triumph.

[126] at which, the first Vespers having been celebrated, To the sacred festivity, by the first Vespers solemnly celebrated with musical concert, a beginning was given, the Reverend Lord officiating in Pontificals. But since a special Office of the Translation of St. Norbert had not yet been composed (which lately arranged at Prague, and approved by the General, and to be presently published in print, we learned from the letters of the excellent man the Reverend Lord Adrian Gosset, Doctor of Sacred Theology and far most deserving Prior of the Premonstratensian Arch-monastery), it seemed good throughout this whole octave to perform that one, which on his Nativity was recited, with some things changed here and there; and with the Collect written below applied, taken from the printed Office of the Procession made at the Translation, and there sung by Cardinal von Harrach, Archbishop of Prague: Almighty eternal God, who art glorious in thy Saints, and by their intercession appeasable to us; grant to us today rejoicing in the triumph of St. Norbert thy Confessor and Pontiff, by his merits and prayers, to come happily, death being triumphed over, to the glory of thy kingdom. Through our Lord, etc.

[127] the feast is begun on the 5th of September in the Cathedral. On the following Sunday, which was the 5th of September, at the fifth morning hour, in the Cathedral church (to which the statue of the Saint had been carried, and placed in its middle) by his sermon on those words of the Royal Psalmist, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints"; the festivity of this Translation was begun by Raphael Lestius, Sub-prior of our church: and among other things, of how great price with God the bones of his friends of this kind are, on account of the many benefits which often sprang from them, he declared. At the eighth hour, before a most numerous audience, and such as weighty persons remembered had never there been seen even for 40 years, a most beautiful sermon delivered the ordinary preacher of our church Norbert van Couwerven, who very aptly to our festivity those words of the Psalmist, "Blow the trumpet at the new moon, on the notable day of your solemnity," first literally explaining from Toletus, Bellarmine, Janssen, and others, thereafter excellently applied them to the same our solemnity. Ps. 80. After the Sermon a Pontifical Sacrifice the Prelate Malderus made, the Abbot of St. Michael also sitting nearby the altar in Pontificals with his Officials; and sitting in the choir-stalls of the same high choir of Blessed Mary, with the Venerable Lords the Canons of the Cathedral Church our Confreres, also the Canons of St. Michael themselves, and the Lords of the Magistracy. But the Relics of St. Norbert were seen set upon the high Altar there.

CHAPTER XV.

The processional pomp, interspersed with various spectacles.

[128] The pomp proceeds from the Cathedral, But of the sacred procession, for the solemn celebrating of which all the religious families of this city with their standards, and in numerous number, had assembled, this was the order. There went before six military Colleges of choice citizens, which they call Guilds, who, clad in their solemn tunics, and leaning on their hands upon their variegated staffs, passed over the triumphal way in a long train. But meanwhile a cloud, which through almost the whole morning time had withdrawn the sky and the sun, and with rain poured down from time to time had cast in fear and some delay (whence also some things could scarcely be arranged in time), that cloud, I say, at the very going-out dissolves into rain: but presently by a like prodigy, by which at Prague after continual snow, so also here, after a sad face of the sky, the cloud being dispersed, the sun suddenly broke forth; and the air made serene, as if about to behold another triumphing sun and Apostle of the city, thereafter through the whole time shone serene. Four Canons thereupon of the Cathedral church, having taken upon their shoulders the statue of the Saint, which until then had stood in the middle of the church, from the church itself, to that marketplace which they call the Old Grain-market, honorably carried it: which there by the Reverend Fathers Minim (who among the Religious families led the column first) was received on their shoulders. But so great was the inundation of the poured-out multitude, whether to accompany, or to behold; that weighty persons are reported to have exclaimed, "Where now are the heretics?" As if indeed it seemed incredible, that anyone had remained, who did not run to meet this Subduer of the Tanchelinian heresy (would that of the heresies of our times too!). Certainly we ourselves felt, that nearly the whole triumphal way was so occupied, that the crowd could scarcely be moved aside, so that we could, even singly (not now two by two, as Religious are wont in processions), I will not say pass through, but break through in certain places.

[129] As we had scarcely gone out from the church of the Virgin-mother, immediately an elegant stage is in view, on which are represented, the Angelic foretelling of the Saint about to be born, exhibiting that sacred and happy foretelling, by which by a heavenly oracle to the pregnant mother Hedwig it was said in sleep; "Be of good courage, Hedwig: an Archbishop and great will he be, whom thou bearest in thy womb." The stage was adorned in the likeness of a bedchamber, all round with carpets and other fitting furniture. On its side the bed of the great Countess, furnished with its canopy, coverlets, and all its ornament. In the bed the mother of St. Norbert, in the likeness of one resting; her head girt round with a white fillet. There sat by her on either side various women, all in most splendid array, either as matrons visiting the pregnant Countess, or as noble attendants, to be both for the honor and the aid of the Countess in the future. The array of each there is no reason to express; it is enough

if you think of Antwerp, from which nothing but the magnificent. At the side of the bed, in a higher place, as if gliding down from heaven, appeared an Angel, of august appearance and array, as is the custom to represent the Angels, the legates of God. Of him presently this voice was heard, to the mother pregnant with the holy offspring, witness and foreteller of the future greatness of the Norbert about to be born: "Be of good courage, Hedwig," etc.

[130] As we proceeded beyond the middle of the marketplace as far as the road, his Conversion, by which, turned to the south, we look freely upon the North horn of Blessed Mary's; behold, again another stage is seen, more notable for ingenuity and art than for array. It was a field, clothed with green and living turf, and here and there also planted with its trees. There rose up by ingenious hand hanging crags, on this side as it were hollowed out, threatening ruin, on that, by a happy imitation of nature, ascending upward and erect. This field was a wrestling-ground and amphitheater, into whose arena God Himself with Norbert was about to descend to single combat, that out of a second Saul he might make a second Paul, out of a follower of the world a despiser of the world. Around this stage Norbert, in courtly dress, swollen with vanity, sitting on a horse, with one servant as companion, a little before the procession rode about through the very marketplace (as if about to proceed to Freden); but at the coming of the sacred procession, by a wooden Bridge attached slopingly to the side of the stage, the knight Norbert with his attendant servant ascended the green theater. Here, the horse having been turned several times in a circle, behold, suddenly from the crag flash thunderbolts, thunders terrify the man, while certain ones covered both by crag and by grove, new Salmonei, "Imitate both the flames of Jove and the sounds of Olympus." At these things the horse is disturbed with its rider; the rider too, dismayed by the frequent thunderbolt, and shaken from the saddle, falls to the ground, hanging nonetheless by one foot from the stirrup. Here Norbert, prostrate on the ground, through the whole time of the passing procession, lay as if half-alive, and "Forgetful of himself, and ignorant himself of his own life." At last after about an hour, as if waking from a deep sleep, and restored to himself, truly a son of thunder, with Saul now acknowledging another Lord, prepares himself to obey, exclaiming: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Namely, prostrated by the voice of Christ from heaven, and receiving from above the prohibition of serving the world and vanity; he fell upon his face, first to be prostrated, afterward to be raised; first to be struck, afterward to be healed: for Christ would not afterward live in him, unless he were killed in that wherein he had before lived badly. The servant meanwhile is astonished, and holds the horse, nor do the thunders mixed with the thunderbolt cease at intervals.

[131] Around this stage the Fathers Minim deposit the statue of the Saint upon the shoulders of the Reverend Fathers Capuchin, Companions of the strictest observance of St. Francis (who walked in the second order among the Religious): and then they went into the Milk-market, in which at the head of the Way (as they call it) of Corte-nieustraet, another Theater follows in order: the novitiate of piety, in which Norbert, prefacing his future sanctity as another Saul, subjects himself to be instructed to another Ananias, a truly second Vessel of divine election. There was in this stage a sacred chamber, of Blessed memory Cono, Abbot of Siegburg of the Order of the Benedictines, that one who afterward was Bishop of the Church of Regensburg, clothed with its carpet and other pious and Religious furniture. In the middle a table set with a Cross, a skull, and like incentives to piety. By it on the left side sat Blessed Cono, in his black and sacred habit, holding the Crozier with his left hand, his right placed on the table, as if about to raise Norbert to piety. From the opposite part sat Norbert, who was already wholly in this thought, that he might receive from the mouth of the blessed man the seeds of salvation, and take the salutary lessons of living religiously. There sat behind some Religious with their Abbot, and one servant a companion to Norbert.

[132] then he himself dispersing his goods among the poor, Having contemplated this spectacle, we proceed thence to the Egg-market: and behold, presently at its entrance another Stage is set before our eyes. In this the holy Father, with the great Apostles loathing the world, and suspended with longing for the goods above, because he had heard with a most faithful ear, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all and give to the poor," about faithfully to fulfill it, of his own accord cast off all his goods and most ample possessions; that by a freer journey he might ascend to the summit of supreme sanctity, the world and riches being trodden underfoot. He himself stands in rough and neglected dress at his table: on it various little caskets with riches, necklaces, collars, like instruments of vanity which the world loves and esteems. Here and there besides other little caskets, other coffers heavy with their riches, which wish to be disemboweled among the poor. Various needy ones run up, men, women, boys, whom he might make his friends of the mammon of iniquity; he pours out upon these readily everything: and greater is the joy to him who pours out, than to him who receives. At the beginning of this market the Reverend Fathers Beggards reverently received here on their shoulders the sacred Statue of St. Norbert; which at the head of that street, in which is also the shoe-market, near the cemetery of the Blessed Virgin, they handed over to the Reverend Fathers Hermits of St. Augustine to be carried.

[133] Here again another stage set itself before our eyes, which should exhibit a court, Pope Calixtus commending Norbert to the Bishop of Laon, adorned round with precious carpets. In a higher place Pope Calixtus II, in a linen and red mantle, and the rest of the usual Papal habit, sublime, sat on a throne strewn with cloth-of-gold hangings. Both sides nearest girt two Cardinals, likewise in linen and their purple mantle, and the rest of the Cardinalitial girding. Next to these sat some Bishops, clad in the Pontifical Mitre and the rest of the Pontificals. Before Calixtus, a little to the side, in pilgrim's dress, St. Norbert, with bent knees prostrate before the Pontiff, humbly awaiting, what concerning him that supreme and sacred Majesty after God on earth should arrange. There was present also with the aforesaid Fathers Bartholomew, Bishop of Laon, himself too in his linen and violet mantle, and the rest of the habit which befits a Bishop. To him Pope Calixtus commended St. Norbert, known both to his Predecessor Gelasius, and to himself by experience for his singular holiness and zeal for souls, with pastoral solicitude, that he should kindly cherish the man of God; foreseeing with sagacious mind in the seed, how great a harvest of merits toward the whole Church was to be expected from so great a man. Bartholomew, inclined by the Pope's commendation, and also by its own weight, received the man kindly and humbly, and even more kindly cherished him; striving so to entangle him to himself with benefits, that so great a virtue might not perhaps slip away from him. At the extremity on either side two guards each in Helvetic dress, as most faithful guards of the Pope, by standing around closed the assembly of the Prelates.

[134] The passage thence through the Way (as they call it) of the cemetery, and beyond the middle of this Way opposite the cemetery, The white Habit given to him by the Blessed Virgin. on the right side a sixth Stage is seen; in which the heavenly foreshowing of the most white Habit, exhibited to St. Norbert through the Queen of heaven and Virgin-mother; and with so great beauty and pleasantness, that while those passing by seemed unable to be satisfied with this spectacle; the street, otherwise spread broadly enough, could not hold the most crowded men. There hung in the middle of the Stage a cloud rivaling a living one, as if hanging suspended in its own air: from the cloud, eminent with most beautiful countenance, the Virgin-mother appears in royal array, and (to say it in a word) in that with which we are wont to represent the Queen of heaven. Around this cloud, with festal joy, with cheerful countenance, in most splendid appearance, various Angels companions of the Mother of God, with gems, garlands, golden girdles, with garment glowing, snowy, varied, shining and seemly. Nor here idle, but ministering Spirits at every nod of the Angels of their Lady, each one strives to exhibit his part of the snowy and Angelic garment, with which St. Norbert was to be presented from the favor of heaven. For clad in white (as one says) and in snowy garments more frequently were the Angels seen, as Scripture speaks, and no one can deny. Whiteness surely pleases the Angels both in garment and in mind. And why should they not rejoice in a white garment, the most innocent, purest Spirits? This woven and seemly snow befits them. One therefore the Cope, which we call Choral; another the Tunic; another the Scapular; another the Cincture; another sustains and bears the Cowl; all white, and white gifts sent from heaven to the white Patriarch. Before his Lady, nay also his Mother (for why should I not call her his Mother, whom the very Virgin Mother of God here deigned to call her Son?), with suppliant countenance, with suppliant gesture, leaning on his knees in simple dress, and in that which pilgrims are wont, St. Norbert, in suspended expectation awaiting, what favor the kind Mother with the Angelic company should bestow upon him. But she from the cloud, with smiling countenance, with placid address, and pointing with the right hand toward the white Garment brought by Angelic hands, turned toward Norbert, presently redoubles: "Son, Norbert, receive the white garment." At these things Norbert melts for joy at so great a favor of so great an Empress. Nor did his pleasure stop in his eyes: but also to his ears their own honey and their own sweetness, as if with their Queen both the singers and the flute-players of God had descended. After the cloud and the Virgin, voices were heard with lyres, pipes, and other most sweet instruments of that kind: and in alternation one, with most sweet modulation in our vernacular tongue, sang to the most glorious Mother a canticle of praise with the applause of all. We saw the Most Reverend Lord himself stop attentive at this spectacle and most pleasing concert, and sweetly smile. While the Bishop stops, the whole stage is suddenly covered with curtains, and all those Angels composed in another gesture; a new spectacle, the curtains opened. Our Most Reverend one still stops, as if not yet sated; and behold again, the stage covered, suddenly through the Angels Norbert appears clad in the whole White garment; and with new appearance and new gestures, Norbert the candidate of heaven in white garments the Angels in congratulation salute: and so at last from this spectacle, as if unwilling, torn away, we proceed further.

[135] Having been fed, as is said, at the former stage both in eyes and ears, straightway forthwith we set out to the West; where in the middle of the street, which is called Reynderstraet, on the left side a new favor of heaven is set before our eyes; as if there did not suffice to the Premonstratensian Order foreshowed from heaven, the Father, the Place, and the Habit, unless also the sacred Canon or the Rule itself were equally foreshowed from heaven: so that deservedly the Order may be called Premonstratensian, all whose things in this manner are foreshowed from heaven. There stood here as it were a household-shrine or oratory of Norbert, the Rule brought from heaven by St. Augustine clothed with its carpet and adorned with fitting furniture. On its side a table strewn with its array, with a sacred Cross and like ornament, which serves devotion rather than vanity. There sat bent on the ground Blessed Norbert, as a suppliant to God and watching in prayer, that concerning a sure Rule, under which with his Brothers he might serve God, he might be divinely taught. Nor were his prayers in vain: for there was present from above and sent from heaven a great citizen of heaven, the light of Doctors,

the golden sun of the world, the great, I say, Aurelius Augustine. Norbert, as he was clothed in the white habit, such as the Virgin-mother had shown, still leaning on his knees, was awaiting a new pledge from heaven from Augustine. But he, adorned with Pontifical ornaments, mitre and others fittingly, in a more eminent place as if gliding from heaven, holds out to Norbert the golden Rule written by himself, with ineffable and singular privilege. For not (so far as we know) to any of those who serve under the Rule of St. Augustine, did he himself, now immortal and an inhabitant of heaven, bring it from those above, and confirm it with so notable a promise, as to the most blessed Father Norbert, to whom it was said; "He whom thou seest, I am Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. Behold thou hast the Rule, which I wrote; under which if thy Brothers, my Sons, shall serve well, they shall stand secure in the terror of the last judgment." Yet let no one think that any of the other Orders, if under the same Rule they have served well, is separated from the communion of this security: this only we say, that by a singular privilege that promise was made expressly and directly to no other.

[136] At the beginning of this way the Reverend Fathers of Mount Carmel had received the statue of the Saint to be carried, as far as the Flax-market; and there they imposed the same upon the Reverend Fathers of the Order of St. Francis of the Regular Observance to be borne: who as soon as they submitted their necks to the most pleasing weight, with raised voice that sacred song of victory, "Te Deum laudamus," to the great edification of all the people (who were very many in number) through the whole train of the Way, which is called the High, solemnly sang. the conversion of the Antwerpers, There stood in the Flax-market another mass, in which the conversion of our city made through St. Norbert five hundred years before, was so festively exhibited, that here too our Most Reverend one was seen to have stopped, delighted with the spectacle of the matter; and afterward he plainly declared to certain ones, that he had beheld all the stages with such pleasure, that all the trouble of the way was wiped away; yet above the rest he was delighted by the foreshowing of the white Habit, and by that which here we set ourselves to follow out, the conversion of his Antwerp. There sat in this stage, on a sublime throne in the form of a graceful nymph, adorned in a most beautiful guise, Antwerp, in a garment red and white according to custom, and besides the rest of the array in which she was most richly adorned, holding a most white lily in her right hand, in her left a shield (in which the insignia of the city), that she might be more distinctly known; flattering our vow, that it might be a token of present gratitude, and also an omen of even greater always to come, of the affection of Antwerp toward St. Norbert her Apostle. Toward the front part in the middle of the theater, St. Norbert stood in the white habit, with the scapular ungirt, with a white biretta on his head, his right hand free in the gesture of one preaching, his left holding a branch of olive, as the Angel of peace; which he always most zealously pursued, and, hatreds being lulled, everywhere and always so promoted, that deservedly in the very hour of his falling asleep, in a white garment and with a branch of olive in his hand, he merited to be plainly seen by a certain Brother. At his feet that most wicked one, the most sworn enemy of God and of all the Sacraments and especially of the most holy Eucharist and of the whole Religion, the inciter and teacher of shameful lust, the truest Patriarch of our heresies; Tanchelin (I say), in proud array, with a chalice with hosts in his hand, as if execrating the Venerable Sacrament, lay prostrate; with manifest token of that Sacramentarian and Adamitic heresy utterly extirpated and overthrown through the Herald of truth. There was also trodden, laid beneath the foot of Norbert, the devil, St. Norbert the Scourge of Demons: who with various arts and devices strove to supplant the author of the Order, and the Order itself. But by the grace of God he did not prevail; rather, succumbing to St. Norbert by manifold victory. There stood by Norbert some Companions, and among them the Blessed Father Waltmann, afterward the first Abbot of St. Michael, in a like guise with him, except that the scapular was bound above with a cincture. Through the whole theater, which was more capacious than the rest; a great multitude of men, women, nobles, citizens, rustics, poor; before, behind, right, left, was poured around; each one most festive in his own array, as if about to receive from the mouth of Norbert the truth, which by the frauds and errors of Tanchelin had now long been in exile.

[137] As we passed beyond the stage of converted Antwerp, on the Bridge of St. John another met us, representing with its carpet and its array the court of the Emperor Lothair. A work dedicated to setting forth the holiness and heavenly eloquence of Norbert. On a magnificent throne the Emperor Lothair, his heavenly eloquence, with Caesarean majesty, in a most resplendent garment, and splendid with his whole apparatus and diadem, sat sublime. There sat by him on the right Blessed Norbert, in Episcopal girding, namely in a linen and white mozzetta. Opposite Norbert sat on his seat that mellifluous one, and most known to the whole world, the Holy Doctor Bernard, in his white Cistercian habit. At each side of the stage two Lictors, in the Roman manner cloaked and armed, sustained the Roman fasces, the satellites and guards of the Imperial majesty. But the Saints so sat at the side of the Emperor, that they were marked with faces somehow turned toward each other; as if about to converse both among themselves and with the Emperor. By this silent guise it was signified, that great altogether was Norbert's both eloquence and sanctity, which not only the common people and simple men, but also the whole Nobility (signified by the Emperor) and the most Holy men themselves and Prelates of the Church (signified by one, who is in place of all, Bernard) always looked up to and proclaimed. All know, who have read the Life of the Saint, how much the great and wise Augustus always hung upon the mouth of Norbert; by whose persuasion also and salutary counsel, arms being taken up, he removed the pernicious and hard schism of the Church, Pier-Leoni the Antipope being expelled, but Innocent the Pontiff restored. They know also who have surveyed the sacred volumes of the honeyed Doctor, what that man, knowing not how to flatter, both felt and wrote concerning St. Norbert: who proclaims St. Norbert nearer to God than himself, and elsewhere calls him a Heavenly pipe, from whose mouth he congratulates himself to have drunk divine eloquence.

[138] Beside this stage the Reverend Fathers of the Order of St. Dominic received the venerable statue of the Saint, who they too in this manner declared their pious worship toward the common Apostle of our city, and Father of the Faith: but also, the same Hymn "Te Deum" having been sung with a voice of congratulation, at the end of the Quay near the mint-workshops, and his soul seen carried to heaven like a lily. and the last stage set near them at the beginning of the Michaelite Way, they deposited it. That stage stood at the first street here on the right, representing the last act of Norbert, the great Apostle of Antwerp. There lay in a bed adorned (as befitted a Saint) the lifeless body: a mitre on the head; a chasuble of cloth-of-gold on the body; the left arm an Archiepiscopal Cross adorned. Around stood, men with women, youths with old men, the weak mixed with the sound: some to seek help in their affliction, others to wonder, that those sacred remains of the body, in the highest heat for eight days (as the history relates) unburied, were so seasoned with virtues, that through so many days nothing of foulness could be perceived from them. Nor were there lacking to the funeral Religious, in the Norbertine habit commending the soul of their most pious Father to God: to whose consolation also there were seen here two Angels in a higher place, as if hanging suspended in their own air, with wings forthwith about to seek the celestial. These bore, melting with joy, in their hands a most white lily, by this silent guise signifying, what is read in his Life. That his soul, in the likeness of a flower of wondrous whiteness as of a lily, was seen carried by Angels to heaven.

CHAPTER XVI.

The rest of the order of those proceeding: and the festivity continued through the Octave.

[139] This therefore was the order of the sacred families of this city proceeding, and carrying in triumph his sacred Statue: which from the very Marian and Cathedral church, in a long and uninterrupted series, through the triumphal Way there began to follow a vast number of the more honorable citizens carrying torches, and such as easily equaled a thousand. There came forth first two standards of silk cloth, which they call Damask, five feet and a half wide, but ten and a half long, Two standards dedicated to St. Norbert triumphing. below neatly decreasing into two little tongues in the manner of flames, edged with their fringes. One was red, which, a gift of the Convent of this Church, on this side bore St. Norbert White in his regular habit, exhibiting in his right hand a little branch of olive, the mark of peace: in which guise, since for twenty years here we first in St. Michael began to represent him, it so pleased all, that now everywhere through all parts of the Christian world, with this same little branch of olive our Saint, the Angel of peace, is conspicuously represented. His Primatial Cross a certain Genius painted at his side sustains; but with his left hand he hands over the pastoral Crozier, and with it the key of his Antwerp Monastery to the Blessed Father Waltmann kneeling before him, with these words inscribed above on a golden motto: "Feed my sheep." But there sit behind Waltmann, the Venerable Men Walter of Walcheren, Andrew of Averbode, and Henry of Tongerlo, the first Abbots of those Churches. The other face of the standard the Insignia of the Abbey of St. Michael, enclosed in a garland bent from little branches of olive, the very same which were described above to us exhibits, with the Inscription added; "To St. Norbert triumphing, sacred." The blue standard, likewise a gift of the pious family, on this side represents the same Saint triumphing in his Pontifical worship distinguished with little stars (at whose feet Tanchelin with the evil demon are laid beneath), with the Epigraph added above: "To St. Norbert, Apostle of Antwerp, sacred." But on the other face, it exhibits the same one, to whom likewise conspicuous in the Pontifical guise, compunct men and women reverently bring back the most holy Sacrament, which in chests and holes for several years during the heresy of Tanchelin they had hidden: whence also an inscription put on a silver motto: "To St. Norbert, Champion of the most holy Sacrament, sacred."

[140] Each of these standards (which some more honorable Dean of the Confraternity of St. Michael carried) two lines of torch-bearers followed in so long a train, that you would have believed there had been a certain fiery torrent. A vast number of torch-bearers, Certainly in this pomp of the sacred Relics of St. Norbert that deservedly claims a place for itself, which St. Gregory of Nyssa writes concerning the glorious funeral of the holy Patriarch Meletius. But also it did not lack this its own beauty, that to the Parent of the white Order, of white and virgin wax, these torches for the most part were: in which also, inasmuch as he was an excellent worshipper of the most white Virgin mother, and in a special manner her son, the pious zeal of the Sodalists of the Sodalities of Our Lady among the most religious Fathers of the Society of Jesus, and chiefly of the Reverend Father Hermann Spruyt, Director of the same, shone forth. There came forth also they to our holy Apostle, with burning torches in triumph: and first, of the Sodality of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of God, which is called the Sodality of the Nations (whose red silk standard was borne as its emblem), a vast number of Sodalists, torch-bearers. Various Sodalities accompanied the triumph, There followed again another, both of the Sodalities of the Virgin Born and of the Assumed, which both are of Youths, a standard of silk white and distinguished with gold, which very many of the same Sodality, with burning torches likewise, accompanied. Then to the Marian Sodality of the Married, which is of the Annunciation

of the Virgin, with its emblem standard borne before, a great column of the same Sodalists pressed close. Finally, because our Triumphant one had shown himself, as long as he lived, the most glorious champion of the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, and chiefly in this our city, with a rare example of piety, with its own emblem standard likewise of red linen, gleaming excellently with golden flames, on which on either side the reliquary of the most holy Sacrament was exhibited depicted, the sacred Confraternity of this Sacrament in the Cathedral church, with their torches, closed this most numerous column of torch-bearers.

[141] Then with the Subdeacon (as is in the Roman rites) clad in a tunicle, between two Acolytes of the Cathedral Church, bearing a silver Cross set on a long staff, the choristers and minor Clergy of the same Church followed: to whom, according to the custom now received, succeeded all the Canons and Lay Brothers of the Church of St. Michael: whose column at last the Reverend Abbot of St. Michael closed: who, for his great age, which he had at least eighty-five years, this piety toward the most holy Father supplying strength and spirit, through this whole train of the triumphal way, long enough, notable in a solemn Cope over a Dalmatic, and a gold-embroidered Mitre, before whom the Abbatial Crozier itself was borne, accompanied the Procession. But all the Canon-religious of this church, over their white regular habit, clad in surplices walked, each sustaining on the left arm their almuce of white furs, and bearing in the right hand white lighted wax candles. The back of the Prelate the Canons of the Cathedral church closed, with the Cantors of the College in solemn Copes, with silver staffs, going before them: who all, walking bareheaded out of reverence to the Saint and his Relics, bore the white wax candles which we had assigned to them to carry. and the Relics of St. Norbert before the Bishop: At last with the Ministers and Deacons in precious vestments, those two Canons of our church walked, likewise clad in golden Dalmatics, who had carried the sacred Relics of St. Norbert from Prague; and the same, becomingly enclosed in the silver casket, of which above, through the whole procession reverently sustained on either side, and set forth to the people to be venerated. At last the column of the sacred pomp the Bishop of the Antwerp Church, out of his pious affection toward the Saint, with his Archdeacon and Ministers, himself too in Pontificals, closed: whom all the Most Ample Magistracy of the city of Antwerp, with ordinary trumpeters going before filling all the ways with festal melody, honorably accompanied; with followers from the people so innumerable, that nearly the whole city seemed poured out to this feast.

[142] who in the Michaelite church blesses all: But when the order of those proceeding had come to the last stage, where we said above the Fathers Preachers had deposited the sacred Statue; the Norbertine Canons of St. Michael, the Sons of St. Norbert in Christ, receiving the same on most ready shoulders, carried it to their own church; and having sung there most solemnly, through various Choirs of musicians, the Hymn "Te Deum laudamus," deposited the same on its throne in the middle of the church, but the Sacred Relics, on another tabernacle most beautifully arranged for this of linen little flowers on the high Altar; where also the Bishop, the proper Prayer concerning St. Norbert from the Roman Missal being subjoined, imparted a solemn blessing to the people, whom all the church (otherwise capacious enough) could not hold. Which done, all departing in peace, the Abbot, as many as both of the Canons and of others had been occupied in the Cathedral Church in the ministry of the solemn Mass, as also the Master of the sacred ceremonies, with religious hospitality admitted all to his table. The solemnity begun in this manner in the Marian basilica, in ours (whose either entrance, among the verdant branches of trees and flowery garlands, displayed the painted image of the Saint) was ended, or rather begun: because through the following octave, it was frequented by an innumerable multitude of those piously visiting the Saint and his Relics. From midday about the third hour from the pulpit of our church most learnedly in praise of the Saint preached the Lord Gaspar Estrix, Licentiate of Sacred Theology, and then Pastor of the Cathedral Church, but afterward Canon and Parish-priest of the same church: who on those words of the Book of Esther chapter IX, and the festivity of this day was concluded, "Thus shall he be honored whom the King shall will to honor"; excellently discoursed in honor of our Triumphant one, and his illustrious merits toward the Antwerp church (which as a certain stable of Augeas he, the new Alcides, had cleansed) with new and learned conceptions, as he is a Man very eloquent, declared. The sermon was succeeded after the fourth hour by Vespers, which performed with most solemn musical concert, and the greatest concourse of the people on every side, with Compline and Lauds were ended about the seventh evening hour: and so to the festivity of this day a crown, with great congratulation of all the Orders, and chiefly with the pious exultation of the Sons of St. Norbert, was set.

[143] it is continued through the whole Octave. But because at Prague through that whole octave of the Triumphant one the several Families of Religious had chosen the several days of the week, on which both with a Procession and a solemn Office, and also a sacred Sermon, they should come to venerate the Relics of the Saint; so also in this our Echo of the Triumphant one, on the several days of the week, various sacred Congregations of this city came; and those chiefly, which are not wont to accompany the public Processions of the city, as are the Lords Cistercians, the Discalced Fathers, the Fathers of the Society; insofar as in this manner they too might make their devotion toward the common Parent attested; [The Fathers of the College of the Society with their Schools come to venerate St. Norbert.] which others, by accompanying the public Procession, had already declared. On the second weekday therefore in the morning the Reverend Fathers of the Antwerp College of the Society of Jesus, with their Schools and Sodalities, before which most beautiful standards of linen, becomingly adorned with the saving name of Jesus, were borne, came to venerate the Saint and his Relics: whom all, with those two of our standards lately fitted for this solemnity (as we lately said) going before, the Canon-religious of St. Michael receiving at the gate near the Abbatial open space, reverently through the cloister of the monastery led to their church: which because on the following days it was done likewise by the other families of Religious, let it here suffice to have commemorated once. All these, before the Statue of the Saint, piously occupying the whole Church, divine service performed Father Martin Bresser, then most vigilant Rector of the Antwerp College, now of the Louvain one; and also a sermon far most learned delivered the Reverend Father Anthony of Burgundy, brother of the Count de Wacke, Prefect of the schools, who on that of Isaiah XXXV, "And it shall flourish like the lily," excellently the illustrious adornments of the white Order (of which the lily is the hieroglyph), as of so many spiritual lilies of a most pleasant garden, and chiefly of St. Norbert (whom he likened to the lily), delineated with the most beautiful brush of his sermon. The Office of the High Mass of St. Norbert for the same Fathers, who outside their churches are not wont to celebrate solemn offices of this kind, celebratedly performed the Lord Philip Boonen, then Prior of the Monastery of St. Saviour, but now most worthy Coadjutor of the Lord William de Castillo, Archimandrite of Baudeloo, with the religious Ministers of his Order assisting him: whom (which on the other days too was done for the other Congregations of Religious) the Prelate of St. Michael for gratitude's sake, with pious cheerfulness, according to the face of the Saints, received at his table.

[144] The order of the evening Lauds through the Octave was of this kind. To satisfy the devotion of the people, who even on this second weekday, on a day yet not festal, so frequently visited the church as if it had been a Paschal solemnity; daily at the middle of the sixth hour after noon, Compline being performed, and the ringing of the larger bell sent before, a procession was instituted, with those two new standards described above borne before, to the nave of the church; the Convent being in surplices, and the Prior besides the Stole, clad in a solemn Cope, and a veil fitted at the neck, honorably bearing the sacred Relics before his breast, enclosed in their casket, with Acolytes going before with wax candles and incense. The same he, having censed them with several swings, becomingly before the statue of the Saint exhibited to the people to be venerated; and several Hymns having been sung with organs and music, a brief evening conference to the people was daily made from the pulpit, the Religious sitting on either side. An Evening Conference is daily instituted. Thus on this very evening of the second weekday, the Theme of the previous day's sermon being taken up again, "Blow the trumpet at the new moon," etc., the Venerable Lord Brother Norbert, by an excellent discourse from St. Chrysostom, declared the difference between the remnants of corporeal and spiritual foods, and so from the remnants of his former sermon instituted the evening conference; with excellent considerations added concerning St. Norbert, whom he likened to the trumpet, and this feast of Trumpets. But in a like manner through the Octave like Conferences were held. The Conference again music followed: and at last, a blessing given to the people with the Relics, an end was put to this act, the Procession in the order in which it had come returning to the choir. On the third weekday the sacred Relics of St. Norbert chose for themselves to be venerated the Reverend Lords of St. Saviour of the Cistercian Order, who processionally through the Convent of our church with the standards going before (as described above) were led to the choir. The Lords Cistercians come to venerate the Relics of the Saint: A notable sermon delivered the Reverend Lord James Segers, a Monk of the same church, who on his theme from John V, "He was a burning and shining Lamp"; which Christ asserted concerning John the Baptist, and the mellifluous Bernard excellently explains, from the same holy Doctor, who wondrously worshipped and looked up to St. Norbert, the most beautiful conditions of a burning and shining lamp attributed to the same Saint, and proved by his most illustrious deeds.

[145] likewise the Fathers Capuchin On the very feast of the Virgin Born; the Mass of that solemnity having been performed at another time, the Capuchins having been introduced, and led to the choir, for the same a votive Mass of the Translation of St. Norbert, completed with notable music, with his own ministers solemnly performed the Prior of the place, Brother John Chrysostom van der Sterre. But with a most elaborate sermon and excellent to amazement, the same Mass had been preceded by the Reverend Father Gabriel Amerfortius, who from Isaiah LI, "Hear me, you who follow that which is just, and seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence you are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you are cut; look unto Abraham your father," etc., beginning from the Hebrews rejoicing after the death of their mother with Moses, who had carried with him the Relics of the Patriarch Joseph; notably applied them, after so many victories won in Germany, to the Emperor Ferdinand triumphing, and translating the sacred Relics of St. Norbert to Prague; and having literally explained those things which were to be noted concerning the Faith and Patience of Abraham, learnedly attributed the same to St. Norbert: to whom also that Antwerp owes more than to her other Apostles, he discoursed theologically. On the fifth weekday it fell to the Tertiaries of the Chapter of Zepperen, whom they call Beggards (called from Begga, we lately asserted), to venerate the Relics of the Saint: who, solemnly received according to custom, and led into the church, a Sermon delivered the Reverend Father William van Styl, Procurator of the monastery, who on those words of Ecclesiasticus; "Behold a great Priest, who in his days pleased God"; declaring the once-miserable state of the city of Antwerp, and St. Norbert divinely subjected to it; also amplified the obligation, by which to the same her Apostle she is deservedly bound. On this same afternoon time, for increasing the glory of St. Norbert, What the Augustinians, a drama among the Hermits Augustinian composed by the Reverend Father Nicasius Baxius in learned verse,

was happily exhibited. It was taken from the life of St. Norbert, an excellent stratagem of the same Saint, by which with his heavenly soul-bending efficacy he subdued, and aggregated to his white Order, most powerful Princes, the Blessed Godfrey, Count of Cappenberg, together with his wife and his brother Otto.

[146] the Minims, The sixth weekday was destined for the Minims of St. Francis of Paola. Before the solemn Mass, a notable French sermon delivered the Reverend Father Giles du Fourmanoir, on that of Matthew V, "He that shall do and teach, he shall be called great"; excellently deducing, with the eloquence of that idiom, that St. Norbert our Father, on every side, was Great. On the Sabbath, the Discalced Carmelites came to venerate the Saint. The sermon before Mass, in Flemish, delivered the Reverend Father Hyacinth of Jesus, who those words of Ecclesiasticus L, "A solid vessel of gold, adorned with every precious stone," excellently applied to St. Norbert; the Discalced Carmelites came. and in detail explained what precious stones of most excellent virtues had shone in him, which he had magnificently built upon the foundation of faith. The office of the High Mass reverently performed the Reverend Father Clement of St. Catharine, Prior of the same Carmelites at Antwerp: but also after Mass a sermon excellent and learned in Spanish delivered (at which, besides various ones of the same nation, and other Nobles, were present the Governor of the castle of Antwerp with his wife) the Reverend Father John of the Mother of God, Definitor of the Province.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Eucharistic functions of the Octave day. Brandea bestowed on various ones.

[147] On the Sunday, which was the 12th of September, but the octave day of this Translation, [The Fathers of the Professed House of the Society of Jesus keep their Station at St. Norbert's,] on which with a most numerous people, as much as not even the church itself could hold, the Reverend Fathers of the Professed House of the Society of Jesus came to declare their piety toward the common Apostle and Parent of our city; the morning sermon before a most crowded audience altogether excellent delivered the Reverend Father Maximilian Habbequius: who for the glory of our Triumphant one these words of his theme excellently illustrated: "If you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus through the Gospel I have begotten you." And among several other things, which from his swelling affection toward the white family of the Premonstratensian Order and its Parent, declared still more often at other times, he belched forth with full mouth; in this our mystical Joseph, holy Norbert, he asserted that he discerned another Savior (as that one once of Egypt), so this one of Antwerp (which he most affectionately explained at length); and so, what concerning the sheaf of the same Joseph, which the other sheaves of his Brothers adored, is elsewhere read; he said was also fulfilled in our Parent now and the other Joseph, Norbert: who, as a certain Heap of wheat, as is held in the Canticles, with a morning sermon: surrounded with Lilies of a double kind (which he most beautifully interpreted), or some other excellent sheaf, in our Antwerp now stood erected for veneration; whom in this octave had come to adore as many sheaves of his Brothers; as many as had come hither to venerate his sacred Statue and Relics, the various Congregations of Religious of this city; among which in the last place today there acceded also the Professed House of the Society of Jesus, in whose name the preacher himself too gladly would adore the erected sheaf of our Joseph; and as once the herald among the Egyptians, would also salute and address our Abrech, St. Norbert; the common Parent and Apostle of our City. This sacred Sermon (which was received with wondrous congratulation of all) the Office of the High Mass succeeded; which most solemnly in Pontificals performed the Lord Matthew, Abbot of St. Michael, with five choirs of musicians arranged through various parts of the church, exhibiting a certain Angelic harmony.

[148] At the third hour after noon a Eucharistic sermon to the people of Antwerp delivered the Venerable Lord Brother Norbert van Couwerven, there follow two other afternoon sermons, on the same his theme, often frequented through this feast of Trumpets: "Blow the trumpet at the new moon," etc.; and so, what he had begun with Trumpets, he concluded with Trumpets; and deduced among other things, for the veneration of the Relics, what the Evangelical Prophet prophesied concerning Christ, "His sepulchre shall be glorious." But the sermon was succeeded by most solemn Vespers of the most Blessed Mother of God and St. Norbert. Isa. 11. At last the crown, during the very Lauds, the same one who on the past Sunday in this our church had begun with an excellent sermon, with an evening conference set on the festivity, the Reverend Lord Parish-priest Gaspar Estrix: who likewise those words of Isaiah XXXV, "The glory of Lebanon is given to it, the beauty of Carmel and Sharon," excellently explained: and to our holy Triumphant one and his white Order, designated by Lebanon, the white mountain, applied: whose illustrious merits had existed and still existed toward the city of Antwerp; he said that to the heap of those benefits no small addition had been made, since it was now enriched with the not small pledges of his sacred Relics, which to all visiting them with the same living faith are to be fountains of salvation, and springs of graces. He gave therefore immortal thanks to the Lord Gaspar von Questenberg, the most worthy Abbot of Strahov, by whose munificence we had been enriched with that treasure. He gave likewise most ample thanks to the Lord Matthew van Irssel, most deserving Abbot of St. Michael, by whose vigilant zeal and labor we had obtained the same: but also asserted that thanks were to be given to the Senate and People of Antwerp, who through this whole octave had shown notable piety toward their Apostle. To that end, "Te Deum laudamus" being sung with notable music, to give thanks to Him who is the fountain of all good things; together with the Lauds of the Blessed Virgin and St. Norbert, and the most solemn carrying of the sacred Relics to the front of the church with a procession, and a blessing given to the people through the same, not until the darkness coming on, an end was put to the solemnity and the concourse of innumerable people.

[149] Here might not incongruously be subjoined, how some are said to have experienced from heaven, for the veneration of these sacred Relics and the invocation of St. Norbert, his healing hand and heavenly help; such as that of which we made mention above, of the arm of a sick man restored to health, and others: which also, by offerings of votive tablets either as vows of health to be received, or as tokens of grace freely received, they often attest; were it not that, according to the holy law of Trent, miracles of this kind are holily forbidden to be published before the inquiry of the Ordinary. There was besides a vast number of those, who either asked their little prayer-beads or rosaries (as they call them), or little images of the Saints, Innumerable Rosaries etc. brought to the Relics or any other things or silk veils, to be brought near to these sacred Pledges; and even now, as often as it happens that the same Relics are unlocked, they demand that they be brought near. But of the Rosaries to be brought near there was so great a heap, that it had filled even larger baskets; whose sacred power thus sanctified was found to have been a terror to the devil in the possessed.

[150] Already of old, even in the very beginnings of the nascent Church, the Bodies and sacred Relics of the Saints were held in such veneration; that since it was reckoned a matter of religion not, I say, to divide the same, but even to handle them; they made for themselves certain veils of linen or some other material, which they piously brought near the same: and as once the half-girdles of Paul, so also these, by the touch of the same sacred things, they believed to be sanctified; nay, and many times experienced that the same had drawn a saving power from that touch. Acts 19:11 But of brandea or veils of this kind made of linen, touched by the sacred Relics of St. Norbert wrapped for a time in the same, several, at the pious instance of pious places, the Abbot of St. Michael sent to some pious places in place of a gift. Thus at the devout prayers of the Noble Lady Margaret Beyssel von Gymnich, Prioress of the monastery of Hinsberg of the Premonstratensian Order, to her and the sacred assembly of those Virgins he lately sent a blue brandeum, Various brandea sent to various ones. another also of white linen to the likewise Religious College of Premonstratensian Virgins in the city of Breda, of the monastery of the Valley of St. Catharine. To the Canons also of the monastery of St. Norbert at Madrid, with these his patent Letters, not so long ago a red brandeum, received by the same with great veneration, he destined. The tenor of the letters is here. We Matthew, by God's permission Abbot of St. Michael of Antwerp, of the Premonstratensian Order, etc. To all who shall see these, eternal greeting in the Lord. We make known, that we, at the pious instance of the Reverend Father, Brother Michael Maldonado, Canon of the Spanish Congregation of our Premonstratensian Order, and Procurator general of the said Congregation in the Royal Court, on the day of the date of the present have given and bestowed, and by these give and bestow on the Father Abbot and Convent of St. Norbert in the royal city of Madrid, a certain red brandeum, in which were wrapped the Relics of St. Norbert our Father, which for our church we lately obtained; and which we believe sanctified (as once our elders are wont) by the touch of the same sacred Relics, as of the remains of a glorious soul. And as once St. Gregory the Great (as is clear from his Register book 3 epistle 30 and others), since he reckoned it a matter of religion to divide the bodies of the Saints, or to take anything from them; was wont to transmit veils of this kind touched by their sacred Relics (which were called brandea); so We too transmit to You this red brandeum; that you may receive it with that veneration, with which those once ennobled by the touch of holy Relics were wont to be received in the Church. In faith of which we have ordered these to be so written, to which we have subjoined our name, and caused our seal to be impressed, on the 7th of November in the year 1628.

[151] It is not to be passed over, that the Fathers of the Antwerp College of the Society of Jesus, out of their pious affection toward St. Norbert, [The Fathers of the Society of Jesus dramatically exhibit the Life of St. Norbert.] this octave already hitherto described by us (in which, as a certain Echo, we strove to triumph again over that far most celebrated Prague one, if not in apparatus and magnificence, certainly in spirit not unequal) concluded with a notable drama, in which they publicly exhibited the life of the same Saint, through their studious youth, to the people of Antwerp, to be beheld in the area of their same college. That drama was ingeniously arranged, filled with great variety, and excellently composed for engendering in the minds of the spectators pious affections to the worship and imitation of the Saint: which, distributed into five Acts, in the First represented St. Norbert, soldiering for the world under the standard of vanity; in the Second, the same wondrously converted through the thunderbolt, beginning a new life, and the Angel of peace; in the Third, the same, Patriarch of the white Order, presented from heaven by the Virgin-mother with the white habit, by Aurelius Augustine with the Canonical Rule, enlisting a new and white soldiery of Jesus; in the Fourth, the Apostle of Antwerp, and the founder there of his Michaelite monastery of the Premonstratensian Order (over which he sets Blessed Father Waltmann as first Abbot); in the Fifth Act at last, the same made Archbishop of Magdeburg, and Primate of all Germany, and finally a blessed citizen of the heavens, excellently and with great applause of the spectators represented. Besides the felicity of the actors, they experienced also on both days the favor of heaven itself (which otherwise seemed to threaten rain) and of a most pleasing air, so that with great pleasure of the same spectators (who in most numerous of both sexes had assembled), a new appetite always being roused in them, it was a second time exhibited.

[152] There clung from this echo of Norbert triumphing a wondrous affection of the people of Antwerp toward their holy Apostle, The affection of the Antwerpers toward St. Norbert which takes greater increases of devotion day by day: so that, what once St. Chrysostom writes concerning the excellent worship of the citizens of Antioch toward their Patriarch St. Meletius; the same concerning this pious zeal of the Antwerpers toward St. Norbert I seem able to assert. For as the people of Antioch, on account of the most pleasing memory of Meletius, which they wished continually to dwell before their eyes, passing over their fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and mothers, imposed the name of Blessed Meletius on their children, so that all houses and crossroads most pleasantly resounded with "Meletius"; so also the Antwerpers strive in rivalry to impose on their children the most pleasing name of Norbert: even though none of their kindred was before called by that name: nay, and they sometimes clothe their same children in the white garment of St. Norbert (which also from time to time is sent to the monastery to be blessed); imitating the people of Antioch toward St. Meletius. that by the same labor they may put on both the virtues and the innocence of the Saint. The other zeal of the people of Antioch toward St. Meletius was, which the Antwerpers happily begin to imitate toward St. Norbert; that they should show themselves most devout also toward the very image of the Saint: so that, by the witness of the same St. Chrysostom, not only in public, but also in private places, they should place it; should express the same on the bezels of rings, in statues and in cups, and on the walls of bedchambers, and everywhere; so also the sacred image of St. Norbert, not only began to be brought into the private houses of his worshippers: but also to be placed in public places, to be fixed on military standards and banners, and to be used for the marks of houses. But the third token of the worship of the people of Antioch toward Meletius was, that they at once decreed a solemn feast to him; and not otherwise than bees a honeycomb, so they flew around his sacred Relics. In which zeal, although the Antwerpers, though immensely more bound to Norbert, are surpassed by the people of Antioch; yet it is altogether to be hoped, that of the same pious vow, which for obtaining this public festivity of St. Norbert, we have already long conceived, we shall sometime be partakers; when chiefly the favor of the Saint from heaven shall have acceded, who will inspire some, that more is to be attributed to the laws of piety than to the reasons of human prudence, perhaps leaning too much on a zeal not good enough.

[153] Our Abbot, solicitous hereafter, that these sacred Relics of St. Norbert might both be more diligently preserved, and more honorably placed in the Church to be venerated by the people; after he had taken care that the chapel of the same Saint, which he has on the left side of the choir to the North, be becomingly clothed all over with hangings of gilded leather; likewise had a new reliquary made there at no small expense; first a new little ark, about two feet long, one high, externally adorned with various carved ornament of Seraphim and fruits, A new reliquary made: and all over gilded: but within clothed all round with red linen, becomingly arranged for receiving the sacred Relics. But for receiving this Relic-ark made very skillfully, he caused likewise a new repository or reliquary, with various artifice of sculpture also, to be fitted in the side of the said Chapel, at the wall opposite the North (that as a certain sacred averter, Norbert might deign to avert every evil which is spread from the North and threatens the monastery). It is four feet and a half high, three and a half wide, which is adorned with notable variegation, partly of cornice and borders, partly of flowers and spirals and horns of Amalthea. On either side two statues each of those virtues which wondrously flourished in the Saint, leaning on their bases, are placed, nearly two feet high, of Faith and of Patience. Above, between two Angels blowing trumpets, leaning on this side and that on the cornice, the statue of St. Norbert is seen set. The whole work externally for the chief part of it is gilded; below, on a neatly fashioned abacus, these things are seen inscribed in larger golden characters. in which in the year 1628 on the 15th of February "The Relics of St. Norbert, Patriarch of the Premonstratensian Canons, Apostle of Antwerp." But all these having been diligently fitted, and worthily adorned for receiving the sacred Remains of so great a guest, when on the 15th day of February of the year 1628, a votive Mass in honor of St. Norbert, and that with notable musical concert, had been celebrated; the Abbot, clad in Pontificals and Mitre, into that new Ark fitted, first blessed by himself according to the rite prefixed in the Pontifical, those sacred Relics of St. Norbert, the Relics are placed. becomingly wrapped in other linen veils, before many witnesses, together with the approbation of the same, and other letters, for the sake of making faith to posterity, enclosed: which then was likewise put into its own new repository in the Chapel of St. Norbert: where this sacred gilded urn, glittering through a glass window placed in front, appears conspicuous to all venerating: and thereafter before it by night and by day a lamp always burning, in the middle of the Chapel, from the very vault for the sake of increasing veneration, is seen hanging.

[154] This pious worship of St. Norbert and his sacred Relics takes greater increases day by day: so that frequently, before his altar and these sacred Relics, one may see a great number of kneelers, Indulgences granted to those visiting them, intimating their vows to the Saint, kindling lights, and exercising other works of piety. For increasing which devotion lately the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Fabius de Lagonissa, Nuncio of Our Most Holy Lord Pope Urban VIII, to all Christ's faithful piously visiting the said chapel and the sacred Relics there deposited, out of the fullness of his faculty, granted Indulgences of three hundred days, by a Diploma given at Brussels, the 18th of December 1628. Finally, for increasing more the devotion of the pious citizens toward this their Guardian, and a Confraternity is instituted the Abbot of St. Michael, through the Apostolic See, takes care solicitously that a pious Confraternity here in honor of St. Norbert be instituted, and enriched with the spiritual treasures of graces and indulgences: nay, and that he might make his piety toward his sacred pledges more attested, he added, that he should take care to have made a certain silver Cross, very skillfully arranged, nearly two feet high; in which in five places particles of the said sacred Relics, visible through crystal, should be enclosed: the very inscription sculpted around each little place indicating what is contained in each, in this order. Around the middle is read: "A Joint of the feet of St. Norbert our Father, Apostle of Antwerp." Around the top: "From the flowings-down of the flesh of St. Norbert our Father." Around the left: "A part of the Priestly Alb of St. Norbert." Around the bottom: "A part of the pastoral Crozier of St. Norbert." Around the right: "From the Dalmatic of St. Norbert, Archbishop of Magdeburg." But also the honest and pious Matron Susanna de Bruyn, wife of the excellent sculptor John Collyns de Nole and captain (whose pious gift also was that blue standard which we described above), takes care to have made for St. Norbert in his chapel a new Altar of various marble, that she might be able to merit his patronage from heaven.

[155] The Echo of Norbert Triumphing resounding at Antwerp under Abbot Matthew, through the organ of the Reverend Lord John Chrysostom van der Sterre, will here be silent for us. A part of the Brain brought in the year 1654 That it might the sooner be able to be silent, and not enormously extend the bulk of the work, with many things cut out again and again, it is contracted to this brevity; the more confidently because a greater prolixity, about to be burdensome to outsiders, ought not here to be desired by the Antwerpers, who have the whole book. To the author, the reward seems to have been succession to the Abbatial dignity, happily offered in the year 1629, and held for 32 years: which also the marbles, eloquent in honor of St. Norbert, will attest to posterity. There succeeded Chrysostom Norbert van Couwerve, inaugurated the 21st of December in the year 1652. He from Norbert Nicholas Amand von Amelunxen, Abbot of Strahov, received, on the 7th of May, in the year 1654, a part of the condensed Brain of the most holy Founder Norbert, and enclosed in a new silver ark: which and the other Relics of the same he enclosed in a new and artful and notable silver casket long to the measure of a human body: which under a notable canopy, on his feast, and through the Octave, is exposed on an extempore altar, magnificently erected in the middle of the church: but through the rest of the year is kept in the Saint's proper little chapel, which, furnished with a marble altar and enclosure, notably adorns the circuit of the choir, together with four other little chapels likewise adorned. There a wall hollowed out into a little place of handsome work, behind gilded doors guards that [ark], to be beheld only on the greater feasts, and illuminated by a lamp burning continually before it, such as you see beneath the altar of the Prague chapel, exhibited above, engraved in bronze.

[156] Desiring to find the Letters of the Abbot of Strahov, donating so notable a part of the sacred Brain, and wishing to gratify us, who have already long wished to inspect all things in person, the present Abbot (whom may God long preserve to the monastery), the Most Ample and Most Reverend Lord John Chrysostom Teniers, with the approbation of the Vicariate of Antwerp. invited us on the 19th of July 1693, to the inspection of that silver ark. And when we were present, he had it, reverently set forth in the Sacristy, before the chief Religious of his monastery opened, and each thing contained within explained before him. And there was found indeed the part of the dried Brain, manifoldly wrapped; but of the writing pertaining to it nothing. He ordered therefore to be transcribed for us the Instrument of the Vicars-general, administering the diocese of Antwerp during the vacancy of the See, and approving the same Relic, which is of this kind: Since the bodies of the Saints reigning with Christ in heaven, left on earth, and their other remains, are the ornaments of churches, the protections of cities against visible and invisible enemies, the incitements of public piety; and it is proven both by right reason, and by innumerable experiences, and by the sense of all ages; we deservedly think, that the things which conduce to amplifying the worship of the same, whose patronage we desire to have unceasingly, are to be promoted by us with singular zeal. Since therefore on the part of the Reverend and Most Ample Lord Norbert van Couwerven, present Abbot of the Monastery of St. Michael, of the Premonstratensian Order in this city, there had been exhibited to us a certain wooden case; and in it a silk little place, containing notable Relics from the body of St. Norbert, the Founder of his Order, and truly the Apostle of the Antwerpers, after the Relics had been inspected legitimately donated and transmitted; to the end and effect, that by the ordinary authority which in this part we use, when asserted, they might be held and exposed as true and lawful, and honor be paid to the same, which should redound to the glory of Almighty God, and to the utility of the whole Church of Antwerp: We, for the duty of our office, as much as in the Lord we can, striving to condescend to the holy desires and filial affection of the Most Ample Lord exhibiting them, and to promote the devotion of the people committed to us toward their Apostle; that we may be more efficaciously helped by the merits of him whose Relics we embrace with pious love; surely trusting, that by the worship of Religion these are prepared for us as Patrons with God, and Guardians against any threatening evils, and at the same time offered as examples and incitements of faith, charity, fortitude, and other virtues; the letters of the Most Reverend Father in Christ and Lord Brother Norbert Nicholas Amand von Amelunxen, Abbot of Strahov, having been unsealed and attentively read through, by which under his own hand and seal he declares and attests, and the letters of the Abbot of Strahov. that he, for the greater

glory of God, and the perpetual consolation of the renowned city of Antwerp, and also the unfailing new blessing of the monastery and Church of St. Michael there, to its altar reverently, as he can, by a pious act of devotion, and a superabundant affection of charity, transmits, imposes, and donates, the middle Brain of the most holy Father Norbert, Apostle of the Antwerpers; asking, that they may well observe, guard, and venerate this treasure: inasmuch as it is the organ, whence so salutary things, while the Man of God lived, were distilled for their salvation and that of posterity; and through which, as is known to the world, the Holy Spirit once wrought many wonderful, stupendous, and holy things. with 40 days' Indulgences added. From which instrument of donation and transmission, since it is established (as far as can morally be known) that the aforementioned Relics are true and lawful; the same as such, by our ordinary authority we approve, and decree that they may be publicly exposed for the veneration of the faithful; for the greater increase of devotion, to all and each visiting these Relics, on the day of their exaltation, and on the other anniversaries, on which holy Mother Church recalls the festal memory of this Saint, with a previous legitimate disposition, in the spirit of prayer, granting in the Lord forty days of true Indulgence, according to the customary form of the Church. In faith and confirmation of all which, we have caused the present to be expedited by the Secretary, under the seal of the Vicariate, and the certification of the Most Ample Lord Vicar General. At Antwerp on the Kalends of May 1654. Francis Dinghens, Vicar. And it was subscribed, by command of the aforesaid Reverend Lords Vicars, Francis Hillewerven, Secretary.

[157] For the aforesaid exaltation seems to have been chosen the third Sunday after Pentecost, wont to be midway between both feasts of the holy Patriarch; which that it might be more solemnly recalled in single years, it pleased to institute one third feast, a plenary Indulgence to it being then also obtained under the title of the Norbertine Triumph, over the sacramentarian heresy of Tanchelin among the Antwerpers; that next after the Octave of the most holy feast there should follow the restitution of the same, brought back into light after the hiding of some years, and so that the pomp of the Eucharistic carrying-round, led round singly through all the parishes of the city, the procession of the Michaelites with the venerable Reliquary should at last conclude. The example of the Abbots of Antwerp, thus twice donated with some part of the sacred Body, brought it about that the President of the Norbertine College at Rome dared himself too to hope for something similar, In the year 1689 a joint sent to Rome. to be exposed for veneration to the Roman people. Nor did his hope deceive him; for he wrote to us in the year 1689, that in the year immediately past, by the benefaction of the Abbot of Strahov Hyacinth Hofman, he had received two particles, one of the fallen flesh (I mean the dust collected from the sepulchre, and compacted into a little mass), and a joint of one finger, under the attestation of the Prince and Archbishop of Prague, signed the 30th of January, which the Most Eminent Cardinal Carpegna, the Pontifical Vicar in the gracious City, recognized and approved to be publicly exposed. The same Lord President had promised us, that he would send the description of the pomp celebrated at Rome in the solemn exposition of the said Relics, together with the letters of donation: but he has hitherto performed nothing, being intent on other matters. Whether certain other particles were communicated in a like manner to others, I have not yet ascertained.

[158] I add the last Indulgences, very lately granted to the whole Order in perpetuity.

POPE CLEMENT X.

For perpetual memory of the matter.

Clement X to all churches of the Order The treasures of heavenly gifts, whose dispensation the divine condescension committed to our faith, we gladly dispense with prudent liberality; since we judge that this, for increasing the religion of the faithful, and fostering and rousing piety toward the blessed inhabitants of the heavenly fatherland, will profit in the Lord. Wishing therefore the churches, both of the Regular Canons, and of the Nuns of the Premonstratensian Order, salutarily instituted by St. Norbert (who, as a burning lamp placed upon the candlestick in the house of the Lord, shone far and wide with Apostolic charisms and other gifts of divine grace) under the special protection of the most blessed Virgin Mother of God, and the Rule of St. Augustine, that they may be frequented with worthy honors, and the devotion of the faithful flowing to them may be increased, to adorn with some gift of spiritual graces; the supplications of our beloved son Francis Buyrette, Regular Canon expressly professed, grants perpetual Indulgences for the feast of St. Norbert and others. and Procurator of the same Order, in his name humbly presented to us upon this; and trusting in the mercy of Almighty God, and in the authority of His blessed Apostles Peter and Paul; to all and each of Christ's faithful of either sex, truly penitent and confessed and refreshed with holy Communion, who shall any of the churches of any monasteries whatsoever, both of the Regular Canons, and of the Nuns of the said Premonstratensian Order, hitherto erected and hereafter at any time to be erected, and existing in whatever places, on the festivities of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Immaculate and of St. Augustine, and on the feast-day of the aforesaid St. Norbert or on the Sunday within his Octave; and on the 13th day of November, on which the Commemoration of all the Saints of the aforesaid Order is wont to be made there; and also any church of the same Order, on the feast-day of the special Patron or Titular of that church, whose name is found noted in the Roman Martyrology, in the year 1673. from the first Vespers until the setting of the sun of days of this kind, in single years shall devoutly visit, and there for the concord of Christian Princes, the extirpation of heresies, and the exaltation of holy Mother Church, shall pour out pious prayers to God; on whatever day of the aforesaid they shall have done this; a plenary Indulgence of all their sins we mercifully grant in the Lord, the present being to avail for perpetual future times… Given at Rome at St. Mary Major, under the Ring of the Fisherman, the 5th day of July 1673, in the fourth year of our Pontificate.

APPENDIX.

Certain more recent benefits, obtained by the help of the Saint.

Norbert, Founder of the Premonstratensian Order, and Archbishop of Magdeburg (St.)

[159] I Elizabeth Sucborabska, Sister of the Order of St. Norbert, a dying Nun, by these present give faithful testimony, that a Religious in Christ much beloved by me, Anna Rupeczka, Sister and Prioress of the monastery of Czarnowanz, in the year of the Lord 1627, was oppressed by the Lord God for some weeks with a most grievous infirmity, so that all hope of her recovery was despaired of by all. And when speech had failed the same, now laboring in extremity, the most mournful Sisters, seeing the anguish of the soul of their most beloved Mother, fled to the church, to the safest anchor and solace of all the sick, at another's vow she suddenly recovers in the year 1627, the most blessed Virgin Mary, saluting her with Litanies, and praying for the safety of the Mother. But I remaining beside the sick woman, and making a vow before the image of St. Norbert, that I wished to transmit her painted face to the body of St. Norbert; immediately the sick and mute woman, her lips as it were loosed, began to speak and to be well. Which I, ascribing to the merits and patronage of St. Norbert, transmit this same image to Prague to his body, suppliantly asking, the favorers of St. Norbert, that they would hang the same at the body of the most holy one. Given in the monastery of Czarnowanz of the Virgins dedicated to God, the 20th day of January 1628.

[160] likewise a gravely infirm Priest. The senior of our Convent of Strahov recounted, that when on a certain occasion he lay sick of a most grievous disease; and for 14 days was vexed with the enormous pains of the colic, medicines availing nothing; his recovery now despaired of by the physician, by the leave of his Lord Prelate, and the counsel of the Father Prior, though destitute of strength, in the absence of the Minister of the sick, having rolled from his bed to his knees, made a vow; that if God, through the merits and intercession of his Holy Father Norbert, should restore the same to health, he would read as many votive Masses as there are letters contained in the name "Norbertus." The vow being made, after three days he rose sound from his bed, and fulfilled the vow.

[161] It was also narrated to us, by those who were present; that at the time of the Translation of the holy Father from Magdeburg to Prague, when from the triumphal arch before the doors of the church a scenic action was instituted, Honorary thunderbolts and thunders from heaven on the feast-day. and there was sung by two boys the solemn canticle, "Benedicite omnia opera," etc., whatever they named in the canticle, with music interspersed, presently came forth at its name into the arch and onto the stage; Fire, Heat, Cold, Water, etc.; but when they ought to have produced Lightnings and Clouds, by no means did they succeed: but (which is to be wondered at) at that very time heaven sent down lightnings and thunders, and immediately was restored to its former serenity.

[162] A Matron near death is healed, The wife of the Lord Baron von Kolowrat, indeed a high-spirited heroine, while at the end of September of the same year, with the physicians crying out, all hope of recovery is denied to the dying woman; turned to the back rail of her little bed, and at the same time poured out into vows and tears, asks from the Heaven-dwellers what the earth-born deny. She calls out Norbert with the silent crying-out of her heart, that he himself would come for medicine. He comes when called; immediately she feels help from heaven: the disease flees and with it nearby death. She herself, having recovered her health with her strength, went to the resting-place of the holy Bones of her physician Norbert; she acknowledges the help, proclaims it, fulfills her vow: and to the Prelate of Strahov she narrates these very things, affirming that she was prompted in conscience to narrate them.

[163] a boy sleepless for an octave from pain of the teeth, A little boy of about four years of a most honorable Matron (she is the wife of the Quaestor the Lord Count von Slawata), after long pains of toothache, so great and so intolerable, that for a whole octave, the boy of an age for sleep, had not taken even a drop of sleep into his eyes; with vows is carried to the church of Strahov. The mother, a certain most religious widow having been taken into the society of piety, prostrates herself in prayer: the little boy is immediately seized with a most profound sleep, so that he could not be roused by any motion or shout. And so after long prayers, while they carry out the sleeping child, and, having mounted a carriage, are conveyed home, behold, suddenly the little boy, awakened, cries out, with all astonished; "Truly," saying, "Lady mother, St. Norbert is a citizen of heaven." And again, his little eyes closed in sleep, he sleeps until the eighth hour of the evening: at which at last, awakened again; "Powerful," he says, "is the physician St. Norbert." Nor thereafter did his pain return to his teeth.

[164] In the year 1651, the 22nd of November, in the city of Aussig, in an inn, named "At the Golden Angel," St. Norbert appearing to a Lutheran physician an image of St. Norbert sitting in Pontificals was painted, in memory that his sacred bones, while they were being translated, had passed the night in the said house. In the aforesaid year and day therefore, a certain physician brought from Dresden, of the Lutheran sect, for some weeks on account of the abundance of patients stayed in the said inn. But it happened, while in the morning at the fifth hour he lay in sleep, St. Norbert appeared to him, just as he is painted in the image there; shaking both hands of the suffering man. He, fortifying himself with the sign of the Cross, exclaimed; "My Lord and my God, what does this portend?" St. Norbert answered: "Ah! bad news." These said, he disappeared. The physician, leaping from his bed, prayed on bent knees, and the whole following day went about all sad. The next day between the sixth and seventh hour a message came, it announces to him the death of his wife. that his wife at that hour, in which St. Norbert appeared to him, struck with apoplexy, had expired. The message so sad received, the physician, though a Lutheran, prostrate on his knees before the image of St. Norbert, burst out into these words, amid sobs and tears: O St.

Norbert, now I know that thou art a holy Man; thou hast brought me sad news. I promise that as long as I live I will daily in thy honor pray one "Our Father." This he narrated several times before several people; testimonies of this fact are kept with us in the monastery.

[165] A woman devoted to the Saint escapes the plague, In the year 1680, when the plague had infected all Prague, a certain Matron, whose husband with seven children the most savage plague had consumed; made a vow to St. Norbert, and among so many plague-stricken ones remained sound and unharmed from this evil. She took care afterward, in thanksgiving, to have an image of St. Norbert painted; which in fact she daily venerates in her oratory.

[166] In the year 1687, on the feast of the Translation, a certain widow of good means appeared in our church; another wins a desperate cause, who related, that a certain lawsuit had been unjustly brought against her; and because, destitute of sufficient instruments, she now ought to lose the cause; she, knowing no refuge except to the Angel of peace St. Norbert, took care to have a Mass read at his sacred Relics. And behold, coming to the Court, she perceived that all the minds of the judges were for her, who before were against; and obtained the cause, of which a little before there was despair.

[167] and the restitution of her injured fame: The same was most grievously defamed by her kinsmen, and that innocently; hence for a long time among them angers, discords, and hatreds were kindled. She again fled to the Angel of peace St. Norbert through a Mass: and behold, returning home, she found messengers from her friends, before her defamers, who asked that occasion be given them; that they wished even publicly to ask pardon for all the injury done to her through defamation; which they also did, and from that time they live together in the greatest peace and charity. All these things the aforesaid widow attested both in and outside the Confessional; ready even to confirm the same by oath.

[168] In the same year the wife of the Most Illustrious Lord Count de Waldstein, a sick mother with her son recovers: together with her younger son, was most grievously ill, and chiefly concerning the younger one it was already despaired. She, candles having been sent, took care to have a Mass read at the sacred remains of the most holy Father: and behold, beyond all hope, both she herself and the younger one a little after were restored to health. In thanksgiving through the whole Octave of the Translation she sent a certain Religious, who should celebrate Mass in honor of the most holy Father.

[169] In the same year a certain Lady confessed, that she had often before this, women in labor are helped. not without peril of life, at one time brought forth two children, and those dead: at last now pregnant, she made a vow to St. Norbert, and most happily bore a living male child; whom afterward she took care to have clad in the white habit of the same sacred Order at the altar of the most holy Father.

[170] In the year 1688 a certain Matron labored in childbirth. Set in these straits, it came into her mind, that the next day would be the sixth day of the month of June, otherwise sacred to St. Norbert. Piously thinking of this, she begins earnestly to implore the help of the most holy Father, and indeed with a most-wished-for outcome. For at the twelfth hour of night, at the beginning of the sixth day of June, she happily brought forth the birth. In return for gratitude she took care to have her child marked with the name of the holy Father. Of the patronage, which is shown to pregnant women through the merits and intercession of the holy Father, there are innumerable examples both at Prague and outside; for the dust of the sacred Body taken with reverence, or at least hung on the neck, procures a most happy birth; so that it may be truly said, that pregnant women have already almost wholly consumed the body of St. Norbert, as to its flesh, out of love and reverence.

[171] These things having been received from Prague from the Convent of Strahov, let there be added something singular, which a most honorable and grave matron, the Lady Boegels, narrates to have happened to her at Xanten, in the very fatherland of the Saint, at Xanten, the natal house of the Saint as in the year 1692 on the 7th of August wrote Father Lambert Buren, formerly senior of our Residence there, a man near seventy, of whom above. He, asked to inquire, with what certainty it is said that the natal place of St. Norbert is still shown there: reported those things which in the Annotations to Chapter I of the Life, letter c, he described: then he continues the epistle thus. The little history of the Lady Boegels, of whom I once made mention, how much weight it may have for the confirmation of the aforementioned tradition concerning St. Norbert born in the street of Mars, let your Reverence see. But thus she narrated to me, and to the Reverend Lord Canon Tunnissen, whom I had taken as companion. a neighboring house is preserved from robbers Namely, that it happened about fifty years ago; that the Hessians with violent hand seized the city of Xanten, and miserably plundered the whole; which when it was being done, her mother, who was then an afflicted widow, and dwelt not far from the place already named, animated by a singular confidence toward this her holy neighbor, called the same by right of neighborhood to her aid; and, the door being opened lest it be broken in, gave the robbers free access. Nor was there delay: harpies in great number immediately rushed in, snatched, plundered whatever met them. But there was present on the moment a horseman of excellent appearance, who, the indignity of the matter perceived, he being invoked: his horse before the doors committed to the guard of the mother, himself entered the house with drawn sword, drove out all the rascals, nor ever afterward appeared, the horse meanwhile left before the doors in the hands of her parent; until afterward, all being pacified, it was led away by some other one. But it had been said to the woman thus: Hold this horse; and be secure, no harm or molestation shall be brought upon thee, as long as it shall stand before thy door: which thing as a fact the daughter of the same today, to the honor of St. Norbert, gratefully proclaims. But whether this horseman was truly St. Norbert, or some Angel, whose house deserves well to be converted into a chapel. or some military Official, moved by the groans of the weeping widow, God knows: I certainly can elicit nothing else from this, than some testimony for confirming, that the place said above is truly that, in which St. Norbert was once born. The same perhaps the Premonstratensian Prelates will conclude, from the things said here and before at the Life, and what I have heard was at another time brought into deliberation; whether they wished to convert the commonly redeemed house into a Chapel to be consecrated to the Saint, they will decree to be carried into effect, as soon as peace restored to Belgium and Germany shall have brought a time opportune for executing thoughts of this kind.

COROLLARY I.

On the institution of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg, and its first Prelates up to St. Norbert.

From a manuscript Chronicle of Magdeburg.

Norbert, Founder of the Premonstratensian Order, and Archbishop of Magdeburg (St.)

BY D. P.

[It seems worth the effort, the Catholic religion at Magdeburg being extinguished,] To the praise of St. Norbert, the 13th Archbishop of Magdeburg, it seems it will be of some service, if the beginnings of that Metropolis, and the acts of the first 12 Archbishops, drawn out from ancient parchments, should emerge at this time; in which that diocese, stripped by its own fault of the worship of the Catholic Religion; by the conditions of the Peace of Westphalia, given over to the secular power of the Elector of Brandenburg, lost the rights of ecclesiastical liberty: of which that the memory too might be abolished, instead of an Archbishopric, it began to be called a Duchy. This happened in the year 1648, when already the hundredth year had elapsed, from when, the Canons being forced to leave the Metropolitan empty, and to betake themselves elsewhere, the city, at once rebel against both God and Caesar, merited to be subjected to the Imperial ban, to revive in writing its beginnings there. whence all things there went backward; the buildings too being disfigured by more than one fire, after the body of St. Norbert was taken away thence, as will be explained below. Before that last change came about, the city had returned to Caesar, subdued by the arms of Count Tilly in the year 1630, and, for two years, ordered to revere the established Archbishop William Leopold, Archduke of Austria, had for a while been forced to receive the exercises of the Catholic Religion. While he, up to the aforesaid Peace of Westphalia, held that title, a prolix ecclesiastical treatise on the history of the city, Strevesdorff had done this briefly before, from the Archive of Magdeburg, having begun to collect, Brother Walther Heinrich Strevesdorff, of Neuss, Doctor of Sacred Theology and Vicar general of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine through Thuringia and Saxony, published a brief Epitome of it in the year 1633, under the title of "The Primate of Magdeburg": which Epitome being already printed, having obtained the Magdeburg Chronicles, written on parchment with the pen in the year 1525, he took thence some Observations, with which he filled one leaf of paper, to be joined to the former.

[2] now it is made from a manuscript parchment Chronicle. That manuscript itself Henry Meibom seems to have had, when publishing the Chronicle of Witikind together with the History of Hroswitha; and to have transcribed thence the things which he subjoins concerning this our subject. Nor does it seem to be other, whence the most diligent John Mabillon gathered his Commentary on St. Adalbert, the first Archbishop of Magdeburg; where he treats of the origin of his monastery and of the erection of the same Metropolis: which Commentary the Reader will find inserted in the fifth Benedictine century, page 573 and following. But the same Chronicle, in the same words for the most part, yet under a modest variety here and there, now more contracted, now more enlarged, to us in the year 1668 traveling to Trier, gave the Reverend Father Henry Turckius, then Rector of our Society there; as a rare, as indeed it is, treasure; although mutilated in the last leaves, through which up to the year noted by Strevesdorff it was probably carried. But that mutilation brings no great prejudice to antiquity: since the older writing of the Codex is not extended beyond the year 1188: but in such wise, that that older writing appears to be a copy of an older codex, corroded toward the end, from the frequent gaps toward the end, in which empty spaces were left, carried to the year 1188: to be supplied at some time with the help of another codex, which older codex could have reached up to the year 1300. But the character of this Codex is not one, nor the same antiquity of the parchments. For the first part up to the year 1080 is older, and on the last page not a little worn; as is wont to happen to the parchments of badly kept codices, and written after the year 1300, stripped of the protection of a cover, of which the other part, equally torn off, was patched a century or half-century after the breaking, as I said: yet in such wise, that in that part where the Codex is oldest, it is not much older than four hundred years.

[3] The authors, as is wont to happen in such cases, are successively several; with interpolations of a double kind. and each, transcribing the copy of his predecessor, interpolated it, as he knew and willed. The first who did this, and supplied the years nearer to himself, either lived in the time of Tagmon, the third Archbishop of Magdeburg; or rather, living about the year 1300, took from some such little treatise, and inserted into the Chronicle which he was transcribing, the beginnings both of the city and of the Archbishopric: but he augmented these with certain interpolations of his own, with no good faith. About to distinguish these from the original text, I will distinguish two Interpolators. The first I will say is Tagmon himself, who died in the year 1012, or his contemporary: but who did not reach to describing the death of Tagmon. To this one would that nothing had been added by him, whom we shall call the second Interpolator, and on whose account so minutely

the condition of the Codex had to be described by me. I have used it before this several times, especially in the Analecta to the Chronico-historical Attempt concerning the series of the Roman Pontiffs, where, on Gregory V and the following, I called it the Saxon Chronicle. I could have called it, with Meibom and Mabillon, the Magdeburg one: for indeed that it was written at Magdeburg, or rather in the nearby monastery of St. John the Baptist, anyone will recognize who reads the history of that Church, such as, beginning to transcribe it hence hither, I divide this Corollary into several Paragraphs.

§. I. The foundation of the city, and in it of the Abbey of St. Maurice, and the later conversion of this into an Archbishopric.

[4] The older author of the Chronicle had written, at the year 938, briefly in his manner, In the aforesaid manuscript these few things: At the same time, the aforesaid King, Otto I, by the prompting and petition of his pious wife Edith the Queen, founded a Royal Abbey within the city of Magdeburg. Not content with these, the re-writers added to that older context, not only the history of the foundation itself more fully described, but also the beginning of the city, taken from the then-current little fable about Julius Caesar. For to Magdeburg the same happened, which happened to many other places of Germany; that it is said to have been founded by him who never came thither. Which because it is to be pardoned to that age, I shall not be loath here too to set down that whole passage, that the reader may better judge of all, and may be able to separate the second interpolations from the first. Thus therefore he speaks in the midst: But before we speak more fully of this foundation, we think it not idle, if concerning the first foundation of so famous a city, and whence it took this name of Parthenopolis or Magdeburg we briefly touch upon a few things according to the tradition of the ancients. [That Caesar therefore, the city is fabulously said to have been founded by Julius Caesar, once most powerful, from Iulus the son of Aeneas surnamed Julius by derivation of his stock, raised to the rank of Dictator at Rome with Crassus and Pompey; when he had undertaken to subdue by arms all Gaul of the triple division to the Roman Empire; coming into these parts of the subjected nation, both that he might more safely rest there with his army, and that he might more easily restrain the surrounding nations, founded several cities in suitable places; some of which he surrounded with earth and timber material, and dedicated to Diana, most also girt with a circuit of walls he strove to fortify, as much as by hasty work the eagerly approaching multitude of people availed. Among which he founded not the least to the honor of Diana: who because among the Gentiles by a foolish error was believed the Goddess of virginity; from Parthénos, which in Greek means Virgin, was also called Parthena; and so from Parthena, that is Diana, he called it Parthenopolis, that is the city of Parthena: which the barbarous name also attests, because Magadeburg is said as it were the city of the Virgin. The same Caesar also made within the city, near the bank of the river Elbe, a temple, nay an idol-shrine, of the same Diana; where for the supplement of the same religion, several Virgins being dedicated, he established the rites of the Goddess, which posterity celebrated. and therefore called Magdeburg:] It matters not much indeed, whether you set these as the second or the first Interpolator's; yet I would prefer to refer it to the second, and by conjecture, as more pious, so more probable, to opine, that name to have been made under Charlemagne from some little chapel of the Virgin Mother of God; the same perhaps which afterward, augmented into a Collegiate church by some of the Carolingians, was at last handed over to the Premonstratensians by St. Norbert.

[5] where Charlemagne founded the chapel of St. Stephen, After these things, several years having passed] (with which words the second Interpolator seems to make the transition from the new to the old insertion) When Charlemagne of supreme virtue, bearing the sceptres of the kingdom,… having converted to the faith of Christ Saxony, subdued by continual storms of wars destroyed the altars of this idol, and caused there to be dedicated an oratory of the Protomartyr Stephen, and subjected the city itself to the diocese of Halberstadt. But the said river Elbe, by continual impulse hollowing its shore up to the walls of the church, that at last fell: in place of which this very modest one, which we behold to this day, the poverty of the common people erected. But the aforesaid Emperor Otto the Great, and after the times of Charles second to none among all those bearing the Roman sceptres, wishing to leave to the ages not only of his own, but also of future generations, a memorial of his name to be celebrated, and Otto I founded a new city, laid the new foundation of this city. For he wished to make there an Episcopal See: but the part of the parish, which was subject to the diocese of Halberstadt, he could not obtain from Bernard, Bishop of the same Church, as long as he lived. He founded therefore there a royal Abbey, as we said, in honor of Blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and of Maurice, the excellent Leader of the Thebans, and the worthy comrade-in-tent of that Innocentius the soldier, whose body Rudolf, with the Abbey of St. Maurice: King of the Burgundians, transmitted to him and the Queen, a royal, nay a divine gift, bestowed. Also the greatest part of the body of St. Maurice, and of certain of his Companions; with very many Relics of Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, and Virgins, he translated into the same city.

[6] In the same year the said Otto, the glorious King, on the 11th of the Kalends of October set over the Abbey Anno, Anno being placed there as Abbot, and then Othwin. a venerable man, taken from the monastery of St. Maximin at Trier; with other Brothers brought thence, in number and sanctity sufficient to form the perfection of monastic discipline. Which Lord Anno, after he had strenuously ruled the Abbey for years (which we could not find), is elected Prelate of Worms (others fix this as done in the year 940), and Othwin is substituted in his place in the Abbey. Thus far (if perhaps you except the things noted beforehand) the first Interpolator: who again at the year 959 adds these things, about to be opportune for what is to be said below, The legates of Helena, Queen of the Russians, who under Romanus, Emperor of Constantinople, was baptized at Constantinople (he was Romanus Lecapenus, who, named Caesar in the year 919, had his own name placed after that of his son-in-law Constantine Porphyrogenitus in public Acts with the title of Augustus, Meanwhile the Russians asking for a Bishop, until he was moved from his rank and deprived of sight, in the 44th year of the same century). The legates, I say, of Helena, falsely, as afterward became clear, coming to King Otto, asked Bishops and Priests to be ordained for the same nation. Which he hearing and exceedingly rejoiced, consented to their petition; and caused to be ordained for them a venerable and Catholic man Libutius. But the same Libutius, after Libutius, Adalbert is ordained: delayed from the journey by certain delays, on the 15th of the Kalends of March closed his last day. To whom Adalbert, of the monks of St. Maximin, by the machination and counsel of Archbishop William (of Mainz namely, all-powerful with the King his father), although he had trusted better things in him, and had never offended in anything against him, being about to be sent abroad, succeeded in the Ordination. Whom the most pious King, with his accustomed mercy, but not admitted by them, furnished with all the supplies which he needed, destined to the nation of the Russians. But this one too, unable to accomplish anything in those things for which he had been sent, and seeing himself wearied in vain, returns: and some of his men being slain in returning, he himself with great labor scarcely escaped; and going to the King, is charitably received; becomes Abbot at Würzburg. and by the God-beloved Archbishop William, in recompense for so inconvenient a pilgrimage machinated for him by him, is embraced and honored with all good things and conveniences, as a brother by a brother: he is then set over the Abbey of Würzburg, and finally created Archbishop of Magdeburg.

[7] In what manner this was done, lucidly explains the Suffragan of that Metropolitan Church, Otto I, the Emperor, Thietmar, Bishop of Merseburg; who, having died in the year 1018, a little before his death wrote eight books of Chronicles concerning the deeds of King Henry, and of the three Ottos, and of Henry the Saint, the Emperors: which books exist with us in manuscript, more fully and more perfectly than they are had in print, and gladly to be communicated to anyone about to undertake another edition. He in book 2 before the middle has thus. The Emperor Otto, having learned the mournful death of his mother, St. Mathilda; and of his Son, William, Archbishop of Mainz; of the other Princes, of Hero the defender of the fatherland and of his illustrious son Sigfrid; complains with grave sorrow of the invincible loss of the whole commonwealth. There urged him to these things the fear of approaching death (and in fact within the fourth year he died) and what he had promised to God in anxious matters, he then strove to fulfill at an opportune time; when namely Bernard of Halberstadt had now died, founding an Archbishopric at Magdeburg, who had delayed him from the execution of his begun counsel. For Hildeward, elected by the whole Clergy and People of the Church of Halberstadt, then Provost and designated for this by Lord Bernard, he commanded to come to Rome; with whom, what he had long hidden, the secret of his mind he turned over: namely, that he had always striven to make in the city of Parthenopolis an Archbishopric, for the hope of eternal reward and the common defense of the fatherland; and he promised himself ready for all things, whatever he might ever ask, if he would consent to him to accomplish this vow. He, as he was a wise man, assented to the pious petition, and granted to God and St. Maurice and the Emperor the part of the Parish, which was situated between the rivers Ohre and Elbe and Bode, and besides the road which is called Fritheria … who called to himself Richar, he establishes the first Prelate there, the third Abbot of the Magdeburg church (for Anno and Otwin, now Bishops, presided), wishing to adorn him with this Sacerdotal dignity: but a certain letter being seen, which was secretly brought to him, he desisted; but Adalbert of Trier, by profession a Monk, but first ordained Prelate of Russia and driven out hence by the Gentiles, to the summit of the Archbishopric, a renowned Father and in all things approved, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 970, on the 15th of the Kalends of November, in the year 970, by Apostolic authority promoted.

[8] Then Otto sent him with great honor, commanding all the Princes of Saxony, six Suffragans being attributed to him: that on the next Nativity of the Lord they should be with him. The Archbishop, magnificently received by the Clergy and all the people, in these festive days, consecrated Boso, Pastor of the Church of Merseburg; Burchard, Provisor of the See of Meissen; Hugo, Bishop of Zeitz; the Custodian of the Church of Havelberg, Dudo, he installed, previously consecrated. All these, promising subjection to him and his successors, were each arranged in their special parishes. There was added to these confreres the Pastor of the Church of Brandenburg, Thietmar, anointed before these; and Jordan, Bishop of Poznań beyond the Ohre or Oder, the diocese being extended through Poland newly begun to be converted from the year 966. among whom also Jordan of Poznań. For this aforesaid Jordan, by nation a Roman of the family of the Orsini, as they believe, the Roman Pontiff, the same Otto requesting, gave; if John Longinus, otherwise Dlugossus, Canon of Warmia, who died in the year 1480, and much praised by our Bolland on the 4th of March, at the Acts of St. Casimir, of whose feast he was the institutor, has correctly reckoned the times. He had left a treatise on the Bishops of Poznań, which, afterward continued, in the year 1604 published Thomas Treter; both worthy of pardon, in that they write Jordan dead in the year 1002, whom it is established from our Chronicle to have died in 982; since his successor Wunger died, in the 30th year of his Episcopate, as

below at number 83, in the year of Christ 1012. Less can it be pardoned them, that they say Jordan ordained by Pope Stephen; of whose name from the year 931 for a hundred years there was none, they could and ought to have known.

§. II. The Institution of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg, from our manuscript, and the ordination of the first Adalbert.

[9] From Thietmar, suspected of no interpolation, I pass to the Chronicle, According to the manuscript Chronicle of Magdeburg to be purged of the second interpolations, in that context which the first Interpolator had added, by the marks []. There the year 969, with the customary brevity of Chronicles, is thus begun: The Archbishopric of Magdeburg is founded by Otto the most Christian Emperor, in the 33rd year of his reign; but of his Empire the 6th; and Adalbert is ordained the first Archbishop there, who first had been directed to the Russians to preach. Then there follows a most prolix interpolation, and that a most beautiful one, and in all things consonant with Thietmar; if you except those things which I shall manifestly prove to be the second interpolator's. But it follows in such a tenor. And since in the earlier parts of this little work, concerning the foundation of that so renowned and so famous city, as we could, we have discoursed; (as you have above at number 5) concerning the foundation also of the Archbishopric in the same city, to discourse something, we judge to be profitable for the utility of readers. The author of the Chronicle could have begun the matter from the 1st year of the Empire of Otto, the 7th of Pope John XII, which was the year of Christ 962; when the aforesaid Pontiff gave his Privilege, concerning the erection of the monastery of Magdeburg into a Metropolis, and of Merseburg into an Episcopal See, without indication of place, in the 5th Indiction, on the 2nd of the Ides of February: which Privilege the most diligent Mabillon found described in the margin of his Chronicle, and inserted in his Commentary on the Acts of St. Adalbert. He could, I say, have begun hence the Author: but on account of the delay interposed in the execution, he preferred to begin from the things done in the Synod of Ravenna after five years, in this manner.

[10] when in the Synod of Ravenna in the year 967 In the year therefore of the Lord's Incarnation more or less nine hundred and sixty-seven, Otto the Emperor Augustus reigning, most diligent in propagating the Christian Religion and the divine service; there was held a Synod at Ravenna in the suburb, in the church of blessed Severus the Confessor and Bishop; with Lord John, the supreme and universal Pontiff, presiding, and several Prelates of Italy, Germany, and Gaul, treating of the state of the Church, with an innumerable Clergy and people also standing by. The same therefore most Serene Emperor Augustus Otto, who had gathered the same holy Synod, for the common safety of his Empire; related before all, that very many nations of the Slavs, within the river Elbe, in the confines of Saxony, Otto I having set forth the conversion of the Slavs, with much labor of his own and often the greatest perils, he had converted to Christ. And because they were rude and not yet stable, by what protection or what custody they ought to be strengthened in the faith, he consulted the holy Synod; asking, that those whom he himself with supreme zeal had consecrated to God, he should not suffer by the negligence of Pastors to return to the vomit. This worthy relation and so great a confession of faith the holy Synod receiving with kind ear, and giving thanks to God in all these things, decreed that Bishops should be given to them judged and esteemed as ratified, that so many peoples of the Slavs, newly converted to God, could be animated and instructed to this only through Bishops, to be constituted in suitable places, in each one of their provinces, according to the quantity of the people and a reasonable division of the land. To do which, that there might be greater firmness, and a safer opportunity in ordaining Bishops; an Archbishop, together with an Archbishop, to whom they could refer and discuss their business and controversy, if any should arise, as to a head, to be constituted and set over them, by common deliberation it judged; and judged that this ought altogether to be done by his judgment and discretion, in whom was the greatest confidence, after God, of repairing and confirming religion.

[11] There is besides a city in the parish of the Bishopric of Halberstadt, called Magdeburg, in the confines of the Saxons and the Slavs, in the confines of the Saxons and the Slavs, on the bank of the aforesaid river Elbe, in which the same most Serene Caesar gathered together a multitude of people; constructed churches; transferring thither the bodies of very many Martyrs, namely of blessed Maurice and Innocentius, and of innumerable other Saints; and constituting there Canons serving God; for their sustenance and the utility of the Church, granted abundantly from his own, castles, villas, estates, and tithes with all their adjacencies. It pleased therefore all, that at the aforesaid city of Magdeburg an Archiepiscopal Cathedra be made, because this, in the confines of the Slavs, as we have foretold, Magdeburg to be established: seemed a place more opportune, and in their propagation the will of the Emperor was more ample. To these things the Emperor, moved by the prayers of the Synod and the will of God, obeyed the decree of the holy Congregation, and judged it worthy to be corroborated by this Privilege of the Apostolic See. Which both was done, and by the supreme Pontiff, and all the Prelates of Italy, Gaul, and Germany who were present, corroborated with their own hands. But because the Prelate of Halberstadt was not present at this Synod, it pleased to defer the conclusion of the cause until his coming, that he himself should absolve the city from the bond of subjection; and then at last the Privilege and the subscription be made unimpaired.

[12] A whole year and a half therefore being now elapsed, when Hatto, Archbishop of Mainz, with the aforesaid Hildeward, namely his Suffragan, had come thither; which, having been approved in the Synod of Rome, and the Emperor had approached them for the said cause, with a soft petition; Hildeward the Bishop, both by the consent of the Archbishop, and by the counsel of all who were present, with prompt and cheerful mind, assented to his pious petition: and an exchange having been made in the present with equal estimation, by Synodal decree, to St. Maurice of Magdeburg, and St. Lawrence of Merseburg, whatever was requested he handed over; with the assent of the Bishop of Halberstadt, that is, the whole parish situated between the rivers Elbe, Saale, Ohre, and Bode, up to those places where the castles Unnesburgh, Wantleva, Hortersleva, with all their appurtenances and villas, which are called Burchwart, are terminated by a boundary extended farther toward the West; with all tithing, ban, subjection, obediences, and every ecclesiastical order, just as the Church of Halberstadt was seen to have possessed up to that time. But he received in return from the Emperor, for the part and utility of his Church, all the tithing in Hosgowe, as it is terminated in the rivers Saale, Willerbike, and Wipper, with all the possession which the same Emperor had acquired by equal exchange from the Abbey constructed in honor of St. Wigbert, in the territory of Herolfesfelt, of which Abbey he himself too was the founder.

[13] But for confirming this exchange, by command of Lord John the supreme and universal Pontiff, and of the Bishops present and of Caesar Augustus Otto, also by the petition of Lord Halward the Prelate of Halberstadt, Ambrose the Palatine Chancellor, and Peter Archbishop of the holy Church of Ravenna; also very many other of the Bishops of Italy and Germany subscribed: whose names also we have striven to note on the present little page. Hatto, confirmed by subscriptions; Archbishop of Mainz, I was present and subscribed. Hildeward, Bishop of Halberstadt, I was present and subscribed. Reginold, Bishop of the Church of Rubilo. Adalbert, Bishop of the Rugii, I was present and subscribed. Alberis, Bishop of the Church of Treviso. Lantward, Bishop of the Church of Minden. Everacer, Bishop of the Church of Liège. Teupert, Bishop of the Church of Feltre. Gauslin, Bishop of the Church of Padua. Sichelm, Bishop of the Church of Florence. Adalbert, Bishop of the Church of Bologna. Arnad, Bishop of Forlimpopoli. John, Bishop of Imola. Ingizo, Bishop of the Church of Castello. Martin, Bishop of the Church of Fresia (?). Thus far our manuscript, and from it, by our Alexander Wiltheim transcribed for himself, the 9th volume of the Councils of Philippe Labbe. The same things Meibom has after Witikind: but with the subscriptions doubled which Labbe took from him, as more entire and more full, also in the various formulas of subscribing, on which the Interpolator of the Chronicle was unwilling to dwell more scrupulously. For he proceeded to the rest, which from our manuscript likewise, though already published in the aforesaid Councils, here again receive; but (as we intend) by distinguishing with these marks [] the spurious from the genuine: which there was not done.

[14] These things thus performed, Caesar, exceedingly glad, and no less solicitous for the things still to be performed according to God, Otto about to execute the matter, having summoned Richar, the third Abbot of the monastery of Magdeburg, in the presence of Anno of Worms and Otwin of Hildesheim, Bishops, then perchance staying with him, wished him to discharge the office of the Episcopate in the very change of his See: but certain ones hindered, by secret counsel, and letters secretly brought to the Emperor for this. He, while, understanding himself deprived of so great an honor, he bore it with less than equanimity; and proposed in hindering so holy a purpose, by whatever means to oppose the Emperor; lest malice should change his understanding, he transfers the Abbey to the mount of St. John the Baptist, struck by a brief illness, he changed earthly things for heavenly; and there succeeded in the same change of See Herding, in the same Congregation nurtured and elected. The Abbey therefore was transferred to a mount, adjacent to the suburb of the same city, and is deputed to St. John the Baptist, and is still held (and O would that it be long and happily held!) about to serve. Which prayer altogether persuades, that this Chronicle was written in the very monastery; and that there to the context of the older chronicle both those, beyond the custom of Chronicles prolix, relations were added, concerning the foundation of the city and the erection of the Archbishopric, but without the second interpolations.

[15] Proceeding further the 1st Interpolator says; The Monks also, with the Clerics succeeding them, whence the Monks yearly left in books or other things very many ornaments, which there by Imperial gift and their own industry had been gathered. [And since sorrow not undeservedly burdened their hearts at this migration; Caesar, for their consolation, added to them no small gifts of estates of his inheritance; and constituted, that in whatever place they should meet with the Canons in one station, they themselves should hold the highest place on the right side]. Let him believe this who can; hardly would anyone persuade me that the Emperor wished the Canons established by himself to yield the first place to the Monks: still less credible things follow. [But also besides (he constituted) that, the day of this translation returning yearly; which is the 5th of the Ides of August, they revisit the ancient See, that is on the Vigil of the victor over flames, the Levite Lawrence, with bare feet in a mournful procession, visiting their See, they should celebrate Mass, whereby both among the Canons and among the Monks of this deed there should perpetually stand an inviolable memory, and an undivided love also should join them: insofar as those should anticipate these, as the first Fathers of their Church, with every exhibition of honor; and these, by a not unlike reason, what members owe to the head, what also the testator to the heir, not without a mournful, but afterward assumed, apparatus. should restore with full devotion. Nor did so prudent a counsel fail its deviser, as also to this day, to anyone wishing to know, it is public]. That every year the Monks should be allowed to revisit the first see on such a day, to sing Mass there, to hold also for that one time the right place in the choir, the prudent Emperor or Archbishop could permit those asking or even of his own accord grant. But what prudence would it have been, to summon those, whom he wished consoled for their loss, and honored, with a mournful procession barefoot, as if undergoing the annual penance of some crime? It must have been the invention of the Monks themselves, by renewing the mourning yearly to reproach as it were their expulsion to its authors; and that

probably after the death of Otto and Adalbert, while they lived this thing could not but have happened grievous. Let us proceed further.

[16] The same in the year 970 establishes there as Archbishop Adalbert, There was at that time a certain Adalbert of great name and merit, who, long before drawn away from the monastery of St. Maximin at Trier as a Monk, and consecrated Bishop, as in the earlier parts we have partly treated (namely at the year 959), had been destined to preach to the Russians; but the people, exasperating, with hard brow and untamable heart, drove him out of their borders, and despised the gospel of peace; because by God's providence in our land a people of new acquisition was to be committed to him. In the year of the Lord 970, the Emperor promoted the aforesaid Adalbert, taken from the Abbey of Würzburg, which meanwhile he was governing, to the Priesthood of the aforesaid Church, in all things worthy and approved; and directed him, with letters of his authority, for receiving the Pallium and Privilege from the Apostolic See. Whom John the Apostolic one, the thirteenth of that name, and sends him to Rome for the Pallium: but in the order of Roman Pontiffs the 136th, receiving most kindly, rejoicing also at the proper zeal of the most glorious Emperor, which he had in amplifying the divine worship, and therefore acquiescing in his just petitions, by Apostolic authority decreed that he and his successors should be Archbishop. Giving also to the same a Pallium for celebrating the solemnities of Masses, admonished by exceeding love, on the 15th of the Kalends of November, that is on the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist, he himself placed it around him; which John 13 imposed on him, and by a privilege of Apostolic authority sanctioned and confirmed that he [should have the Primacy in every ecclesiastical Order, of all the Churches and Archbishops who are ordained in Germany; in Gaul also (that is East Francia) be in all things similar in honor to the Archbishops of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier; bear the sign of the Cross before him, and have a partnership among the Cardinal Bishops of the Roman See]. So long namely before the Bishops, who were wont by attesting to declare the Pontifical election made by the Cardinals legitimate, and therefore to subscribe after the Cardinals (as I showed was done even in the year 1130 in my Chronico-historical Attempt concerning the Pontiffs at the Pontificate of Hadrian IV number 4), so long, I say, before the Bishops had begun to be numbered with the Cardinals with right of suffrage.

[17] [And also XII Priests, VII Deacons, XIX Subdeacons Cardinals, but without the privileges afterward added, according to the custom of the Holy Roman Church, to ordain (although the Roman Church never had Cardinal Subdeacons), who, ministering daily at the principal altar, except in fasting, should use Dalmatics; but on feasts, Sandals; and that the Priests and Abbots of St. John the Baptist should be clad in tunics; and that, these and the Bishops excepted, upon the altar dedicated in honor of Blessed Maurice, no one should at all presume to celebrate Mass (just as also the Canons of Aachen wish to be permitted to themselves alone, to celebrate Mass upon the altar of the Blessed Virgin). Besides he constituted, that he] should be Metropolitan of the whole nation of the Slavs beyond the Saale and Elbe, then converted and to be converted to the Lord: (why I judge these to be the second Interpolator's, will be more conveniently explained in the last §. of this Corollary: and extended to the Canons. I proceed, lest a longer digression induce obscurity) and that according to the desire of the Emperor in those cities, in which once the greatest superstition of the barbarous rite flourished, that is, Zeitz (otherwise Naumburg), Meissen, Merseburg, Brandenburg, Havelberg, Poznań, Bishoprics should be founded in honor of the Lord: whose Pastors, according to Canonical authority, owing faith and subjection to the Archbishop of Magdeburg, should be associated to him. [These and other things, which the privileges, He, having returned with the Pope's Legates, still there preserved (but either fabricated or interpolated by the transcribers), attest, being ordained by Synodal decree, and confirmed under the threat of the name of God and of the Apostolic one], the aforesaid Archbishop, with the legates of the Roman Church, namely with Wido the Bishop (of Porto) the Librarian (Ciacconius calls him Tido) and Benedict the Cardinal (Archdeacon), who should enthrone him with Hildeward Bishop of Halberstadt in his See, dismissed, returned to the Emperor. Whom the Emperor, no less rejoicing, inasmuch as having attained his blessed desire, with commendatory letters destined to Magdeburg.

[18] Thither therefore, by the command of the Emperor, the Bishops, the Margraves (namely the one of Brandenburg and of Meissen, and solemnly enthroned, instituted by Henry the Fowler about the year 920, to guard the Eastern bounds of the Empire against the incursions of the barbarians) and the rest of the Princes of Saxony assembling, received him honorably and, with acclamation of voices and elevation of hands, enthroned the Elect, with the aforesaid Legates of the Apostolic See. There was present every sex and age of those rejoicing, there was present a general dancing for joy: where for his confirmation, the same Archbishop, in the presence of the same, celebrating the Nativity of the Lord with him, Boso the Monk, he ordains three new suffragans, for the Church of Merseburg; Burchard, for that of Meissen; Hugo, for that of Zeitz, ordained as first Bishops; and Adaldag, instituted the first Provost of the Church of Magdeburg. Dudo also of Havelberg, and Audelin of Brandenburg, Bishops, before indeed subject to the Archbishop of Mainz, but then by the action of the Emperor absolved from the obedience due to him, and receives the obedience of the two old ones attributed to him. promised faith and subjection to the Church of Magdeburg and its Archbishop, with the aforesaid confreres. For he himself, the Emperor Otto of happy memory, was the constructor of all these Episcopal Sees, which he had subjected to the Archbishopric; greatly indeed wishing the Lord to be heir of his infinite inheritance, yet leaving not a little to the succession of his sons. In the celebration therefore of so great and such a solemnity for the rising of the supreme King, and also for the new augmentation of the people itself or of worship, the choir of the people of Magdeburg rejoiced; and a Prince sent by the supreme Prince, the multitude of Princes sings; and openly by the Pastors of the Church, here increased to a laudable number, the Pastor Creator of all is praised.

§. III. The holy death of the first Archbishop Adalbert: the exclusion of the Elect Othric, the unpraised transition of Giselher, Bishop of Merseburg, to the dignity of Metropolitan.

[19] After these things the Emperor Otto I dies, whose prolix eulogy is woven in our Chronicle, Under Otto less worthy, at the year 972; and there succeeds Otto II his son, from the appearance of his face surnamed the Red; and (as by a certain one figuratively it is said) Discolored, an image of silver succeeded the world. For justice and judgment being neglected, which had been the golden preparation of the paternal Throne; mercy and truth, which had preceded his face; after the death of their lover, put to flight by prevailing iniquity, turned their backs on the lands. By an example a sharp censure is proven in the year 979; and by that example, which somewhat obscured the hitherto blameless fame of our Adalbert. The case in the Chronicle is thus narrated: Count Gero is accused before the Emperor by a certain Waldo, Count Gero calumniously accused and in the place which is called Sumering, by the exhortation of Adalbert Archbishop of Magdeburg and of Theodoric the Margrave, taken, is committed to custody. Then, all the Princes of the Kingdom being summoned to Magdeburg, they met on a certain island in single combat; and Waldo, wounded with two blows on the head, the more ardently pursues his enemy: whose head striking with a strong blow, he laid the same on the ground. But asked by the same Gero the Count, if he could fight more; he was forced to confess, that he had now failed. Waldo therefore having gone out, while, his arms laid aside, he is refreshed with water, falling backward, with the bitter cup of death, by the just judgment of God, is drowned. But by the decree of the Judges and the voice of the Emperor, Gero was ordered to be beheaded by a certain executioner, on the 3rd of the Ides of August.

[20] the innocent is punished with death, This combat is recognized to have pleased no one, except Adalbert the Archbishop and Theodoric the Margrave; and the Emperor was rebuked not a little, by Otto Duke of the Bavarians, son of Liudolf coming on the same day, and by Count Berthold, that, for so vile a cause, he had decreed so industrious a man to be condemned. But the same Count Gero, in his own city, which is called Aleslove, had constructed a congregation of Nuns, in honor of St. John the Baptist: after whose beheading, his sister Tetta and his wife Adela, for his memory, handed over all their inheritance. But it came to pass not without some fault of Adalbert: after three years, that the body of the aforesaid Count, when his wife was being placed beside it, was found whole together with the garments. Thus God declared the innocence of Gero; and taught, not to trust much to the judgment of the duel; which yet that it might be utterly forbidden, the power even of permitting duels being taken from Kings themselves, was scarcely at last accomplished by the Council of Trent. Concerning this see Du Cange writing at length in his Glossary; and the conditions and laws, under which even holy Kings permitted duels to be undertaken, since they could not abolish them altogether.

[21] which here he atones for by a swift death; Whatever stain hence contracted, God was unwilling long to adhere to Adalbert, whom I would not doubt seriously repented of the consent given. For in the year of the Lord 981, the 13th of his Pontificate, consummated in good things, when according to custom he went round the parts of his diocese and of Giselher of Merseburg, who meanwhile stayed in the service of the Emperor in Italy, teaching and confirming his people; and coming to Merseburg on the 13th of the Kalends of June celebrated Mass; in the year 971, while visiting his dioceses, the next night, passing the night in a place named Cruwati, and rising at the next light, complained that he was vehemently held by pain of the head: nor yet on this account omitting the begun journey, he began to set out for Frekenloue with his men. And when he had passed by the village of Crimini; a sudden languor prevailing, as if about to fall, gradually nodding from his horse, he began to decline. Presently therefore sustained by his men, and laid upon a carpet there, and all those things which were to be said by the Clerics being completed with haste, by a sweet death, suddenly extinguished. Duly made a partner of the Monks above, As a new star reigning together supports their choir: according to that: They who instruct many unto justice, shall shine as stars for perpetual eternities.

[22] him being buried at Magdeburg, But the body, carried to the castle of Guickenstein, and there veiled in Pontifical garments, by ship was carried all the way to Magdeburg. Where, by the Clergy and People, and especially by the Monks tearfully received, before the altar of the holy Cross and of the holy Apostles Philip and James, in the middle of the greater church, by the venerable Hildeward Bishop of the Church of Halberstadt, and Herding the first Abbot of John the Baptist, was buried with worthy honor, and the sepulchre adorned with such an epitaph. The Prelate Adalbert, filled with every virtue, His limbs enclosed in the ground, gives glad applauses in the heaven. The Clergy mourn him, and grief also wrings the People. This his piety merited, that every age should weep. Strevesdorff says he died on the 21st of May: but the Text which we said Mabillon used, instead of the 13th of the Kalends of June, on which ours has that he came to Merseburg and celebrated Mass, writes the 13th of the Kalends of July; and consequently says that, laid upon a carpet, and all things being completed which were to be said by the Clerics, he faithfully migrated to Christ on the 12th of the Kalends of July: which Mabillon following, referred the Commentary on him as on a Saint to the 20th of June: and this Commentary at that day we shall probably adopt for reasons to be given there.

[23] Ohtric the Canon is elected, The sons of the Church of Magdeburg (for it pleases to follow out from our manuscript Chronicle the history of those Archbishops), deprived of a Pastor, all, with equal counsel and will, elected Ohtric their confrere, then indeed staying in the court of the Emperor: but

that this could by no means be done, the aforesaid Archbishop Adalbert, while he yet lived, had foretold, they did not heed, or heeding made little of it. For since the same Ohtric did not agree with the morals of the Bishop, and on this account perceived his mind toward himself not upright; after he had nobly instructed many in the disciplines of the liberal arts (because in wisdom and eloquence he was incomparable to the Masters of his time, and had there presided over the schools), he deliberated, license having been obtained through Otto Caesar the Red, against the vow of the deceased, to leave the cloister, and rather to serve in the court and royal chapel. Whence, he being absent, when on the day of the Lord's Resurrection, the Archbishop stood ready for the solemnities of Masses; the Subdeacon according to custom holding the holy Cross before him, embracing it with pious palms, with tears he asked, that Ohtric and Hico might never be set over his place. But the divine Office being performed, he himself sitting at table, that for such a supplication he had been heard by the Lord, to all sitting by, the spirit revealing, openly indicated: which afterward the outcome of events proved.

[24] who even dead affirmed that he would not succeed him. For when he had been taken to the Lord, when all (as we said) had elected the aforesaid Ohtric; to Walthard, his beloved and the fourth successor of his See, who was also called Dodico, grieving over such an election, but assenting only for the sake of obedience and concord, at a certain hour, an ecstasy of mind being made; the same Bishop, standing before the southern door of the monastery, with staff and pouch, as if about to go to Rome, appeared: and addressing him as he was astonished kindly, affirmed all those things, which concerning Ohtric, never about to possess his See, by prophetic instinct, while still living in the world, he had foretold. But the Clergy and People, to intimate their election to the Emperor, sent fit messengers into Italy, where the Emperor then stayed. Coming thither, for the diligent accomplishing of the cause of their legation, they entreat Giselher the Suffragan of the Bishop; because they thought him, as the matter was, to be most powerful with the Emperor. Who, although in guile, promised kindly and faithful favor, for Ohtric, The Legates announcing the election, now his old friend: and having entered to the Emperor, and signifying to him the death of the Archbishop, presently rolls at his feet on the ground; and earnestly entreats, that, an opportunity now found, he would deign to recompense him the return of the devoted service bestowed on him by him. But the Emperor promising that he would satisfy his will, having gone out, and by the Legates or the aforesaid Ohtric, what they should hope concerning what had been committed [to] by Caesar, he should report, being asked, with mockery answered; that scarcely for himself, much less for them, in this could he have been favorable, since each is nearest to himself. Thus therefore Ohtric being voided, while, presently disposing to return to his own, he had come to Benevento; suddenly falling ill, he died on the seventh day of the month of October: and there buried, left a clear memorial of his wisdom to many, as is said in the Passion of Blessed Adalbert, Bishop and Martyr, who himself too was of his disciples. That Passion, written by a contemporary Monk, at number 3 says this only, that at the very time, when the holy boy was commended to the Archbishop by his parents, there was a Master of the Schools, a certain Octric, a Philosopher, under whom a throng of youths and a very great abundance of books, study increasing, flourished.

[25] Otto therefore the Emperor, as he had promised, committed to Giselher the Archbishopric of Magdeburg on the 4th of the Ides of September, as custom demanded; who, enthroned at Magdeburg on the 30th of November, and license being given, with the honorific company of Theodoric Bishop of Metz, directed him to his See: whither him, on the 2nd of the Kalends of December, that is on the festivity of St. Andrew, coming, the Clergy and People with festive rite received. The same Giselher therefore Otto the Great Emperor, because he had known him to be strong in nobility of stock, morals, and industry, taken from the cloister of Magdeburg had set over his Chapel, and, Boso the Bishop of Merseburg having died, by the intervention of certain ones had substituted him for him: but having obtained from the second Otto the desired, inasmuch as of far better dignity and opulence, the Archbishopric of Magdeburg, led by the blind greed of ambition, he converts the former Bishopric reserved for himself into an Abbey, the Emperor assenting to him for evil, the honor of God and of the avenger Lawrence being set aside, destroyed the See of the Bishopric of Merseburg together with its name; and, adding it as an Abbey to the Archbishopric, held it. Whence we forbear to write more; because we fear, by following the truth, to incur the offense of certain ones, favoring his acts, for the temporal benefits granted by him, or by the Emperor at his petition; but to say false things for the sake of flattery, we shun as a wicked thing: since the Lord Himself by evident tokens declared that these things by no means pleased Him, to the detriment of both.

[26] to his great evil and that of the consenting Emperor, For, as relates the holy Bishop and Martyr Bruno, cruelly slain with his companions in Prussia, of whom our Bolland on the 14th of February (but in this Chronicle at the year 1009 he is said to have suffered on the 7th of the Ides of March), after the destruction of the Bishopric, to a certain Wise man such a revelation was divinely shown: in which there seemed to him the aforesaid Caesar the second Otto, supported on a golden throne, with a long column of Bishops, Princes, and Nobles surrounding him. When suddenly that victor over flames, the great Lawrence, terrible in fiery aspect, clothed round with a golden stole, appeared in the midst; as was revealed to St. Bruno Bishop and Martyr. and as if provoked by injury, bursting forth, took the silver footstool from beneath the feet of the Emperor; and turning himself away with a grim gaze, began to depart. And when by a certain one of the bystanders, who, or of what authority, he was, who thus presumed to dishonor the King exalted in his glory, it was inquired, and he was asked to give back the footstool; he answered; That unless the disgrace brought upon him were corrected by the Emperor himself, he would without doubt as soon as possible depose him from the throne. Which also was so done. And because the Emperor, making little of this vision heard, and preferring the love of the Archbishop badly flattering to the fear of God, did not correct his error; therefore God shortened the days of his time, and in them poured upon him every confusion; until in a short time (as had been foretold) he lacked at once life and Imperial power, prematurely extinguished in the year 983.

§. IV. The death of Giselher Archbishop II: the Ordination of Tagmon: and his Life, praise, and death from the manuscript of Thietmar.

[27] Otto II or the Red being dead, in the year as said 983, Otto III succeeds his father, in the year 983, on the 7th day of December, left as successor one of childish age indeed, small, but in piety, beauty, and all honesty of morals preeminent (as our Chronicle describes him), who by the anointing of John Archbishop of Ravenna, at Aachen, on the day of the Lord's Nativity was anointed King. He reigning, in the 13th year of his reign, of Christ 996, this one in the year 996 the body of St. Adalbert Bishop martyred St. Adalbert Bishop of Prague is crowned by the Prussians with glorious martyrdom on the 9th of the Kalends of May, whose body, seeking again Gniezno, Otto III honored that place with a new institution, that is with the foundation of an Archbishopric in the same place, but not a legitimate one. For all this province was the parish of the one Bishop of Poznań, and it itself with all the Bishoprics to be founded there in future time, by the authority of the first Otto and of the Pontiffs of the Apostolic See, it brings from Prague to Gniezno, had been subjected to the Metropolitan of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg. This therefore, without the consent of either Bishop, that Emperor dividing into five Bishoprics, in the very city of Gniezno, Gaudentius, the brother of Blessed Adalbert, caused to be consecrated Archbishop; and subjected to him three other Bishops in three places, that is Salzkolberg, Kraków, and Wrocław, ordained: but the Bishop of Poznań, not assenting, he left to his former right and to the subjection of the Archbishop of Magdeburg. and erects this into a metropolis This was, Jordan's successor, Wunger: who from the year of his death, indicated above and to be proven below, it is established held that See from the year 982. Longinus, in his series of Bishops, omitted to name him; and protracts the Episcopate of Jordan up to the year 1002. Hence I vehemently suspect, that this Wunger in such a year departed from Poland, on account of the harshness of the nation, disdaining a German Bishop, to which afterward the Church of Poznań acceded. and led the rest of his life in Saxony. Unless however he had renounced his Bishopric, it is not credible, that the Poles obtained from Rome, as long as he lived, him whom they set as the second Bishop, Timothy, by nation likewise, as the former had been, a Roman. Yet at least when he was dead, the diocese of Poznań was torn from the subjection of the Archbishop of Magdeburg; and began to receive its Bishops from Rome, but not from the Emperor, as Germany received them through investitures, then not yet abrogated.

[28] In the year of the Lord 1000, the aforesaid Emperor, a Synod having been held with the Bishops at Magdeburg, approached Giselher, the Bishop of the same city, [The King in the year 1000 admonishes Giselher to return to the Bishopric of Merseburg.] that, giving glory to God, he should be content with one and legitimate Bishopric. But he, answering not with reason, but with money, asked the mediators of this cause to defer it up to the more frequented Court of Easter to be held at Quedlinburg. Whither when he could not come through the instance of weakness, he directed a certain Rotmann, a Cleric familiar to him, and Walthard the Provost of the Church of Magdeburg, that they should hold him excused: where nonetheless he received a respite, until a council, to be gathered at Aachen before the Emperor. Hither therefore having set out with his favorers, he is approached by the Legate of the Apostolic See concerning the aforesaid cause twice or thrice; and no less he, resisting, but in vain. contrives defenses: but at last, convicted by the sentence of all, he craftily prays that these things be deferred up to a general Synod of the Roman Church. By such arts of machinations the matter, hindered, neither terminated is interrupted, nor any more, as long as Otto lived, is taken up: because the praise of this holy work perfected was owed to St. Henry, after the three Ottos raised to the kingdom.

[29] In the year of the Lord 1004, King Henry, the renowned cultivator of equity, and preeminent in divine religion, St. Henry succeeding the Ottos in the year 1004, whatever affairs of the Kingdom had been left by his predecessor (as a boy, and himself prevented by an untimely death) less cautiously ordered, he himself strove to restore according to the fear of God, and to dispose justly. To him therefore as became known the destruction of the Bishopric of Merseburg, on account of the so incorrigible ambition for a long time of Giselher the Archbishop of Magdeburg; grieving not moderately, with every effort he armed himself for its repair. in the year 1006 Whence also, when in the second year of his Kingdom he had celebrated the Nativity of the Lord at Pöhlde; thence having set out for Thorneburg, he directed Willigis the Archbishop (of Mainz) with other wise and fit men, to Magdeburg to the aforesaid Archbishop, the same attempts in vain. who now from the vexation of a long languor was despaired of by many; admonishing and beseeching by God, that, returning to his heart, he should at least take heed of the scourges of divine correction, so clearly perceptible in his own body; and leaving the See unjustly usurped, and resuming the legitimate one, whatever in its destruction he had erred, even now at the end of his life making satisfaction he should repent. But he, the things which he was unwilling to do, scarcely endured even at the very hearing. Yet speaking a few things for the time, he promised that he would go away, and on the third day answer without doubt. But, O goods badly deferred, after this often denied! By chariot

therefore, but Giselher having died, since otherwise for a long time now he could not, he ordered himself to be carried away to his court at Thuriburg: where, having stayed two days, tormented by diseases, because there is no counsel against the Lord, on the 8th of the Kalends of February he rendered up his soul.

[30] Which heard, the Emperor himself, present at the funeral obsequies, accompanies the body to Magdeburg: from whom Wipert his Chaplain, to convey the royal will concerning the electing of Tagmon, is sent ahead to the Brothers. But Walchard the Provost, the Brothers being gathered together, proposes his Chaplain Tagmon to be elected. when he had made known to them the death of the Prelate and the King's intimation to them; consulted, what they should judge concerning the election of a fit Provisor. Who all unanimously answered that they elected him, though humbly refusing. But the body, carried to the monastery of St. John the Baptist, on the first night is kept with honorific Vigils; and no less on the following day, brought to St. Maurice's, is received by the King then arriving, the Clergy and People; and around it with a more careful rite of those singing psalms on the second night a watch is kept. But morning being made Arnulf Bishop of Halberstadt, The Canons ask for a free election, that he might approach the Brothers concerning the election of Tagmon, is sent by the King. Walthard therefore the Provost, asked to answer for all, although by them he had been elected to this honor of the Pontificate, yet first removed from himself the suspicion of this ambition: but concerning the electing of another, when he says all share the King's intention, professes that they wish and ask, that they may merit to have by canonical authority a free election, and not one coerced by Royal power; and this obtained they freely elect Tagmon: and that they cannot suffer, in their time, the dignity of their Church to undergo detriment. The King therefore these things heard, the same Provost being summoned and the rest of the elders apart, by kindly beseeching and promising much, at last by his and all their will and consent, to the elected Tagmon committed the Episcopal Cathedra, in which he himself too honorably placed him. Whose praise, as is the custom, being celebrated with the favor of all, to the obsequies of the deceased they assemble with another song: whom also before the southern altar, with much mourning and tears, they bury.

[31] who is consecrated at Merseburg, Thereupon the King, going to Merseburg, long widowed of a Pastor, for the sake of consolation, strives as much as possible to restore it to its former honors. There then the venerable Tagmon, on the Purification of St. Mary, was anointed by Willigis the Archbishop of Mainz; the Suffragans of both, who were then present, honorably assisting; but the Legate of the Apostolic See, and Hilderic then first in the order of Suffragans, consenting: for he was to have been ordained by the Apostolic Pontiff alone; but to approach him on account of the instant necessity he could not. there he ordains Wipert Bishop. Then the King before all handed over the Bishopric of Merseburg to the aforesaid Wipert, his Chaplain; the Staff of the new Archbishop being given to him, through which he handed over to him all those things, which he learned had been unjustly taken hence by Giselher: whom nonetheless in the same days the same Tagmon consecrated, with the number of four of his Suffragans standing by him. After therefore the King had fulfilled the vow of his blessed desire, having returned to Magdeburg, lest by this institution he should be accused of having brought any harm to the Archbishop; a compensation having been received from St. Henry: a certain estate of his own right he handed over to the same, with a legal testament, with all its appurtenances, situated in the province of Zeudici. For he himself the King of great devotion in the Lord, taking from his chapel no small part of the Relics of Blessed Maurice, the winter then perchance raging with reviving cold, and the earth covering with icy roughness and snow, from the mount of St. John the Baptist, who barefoot conducts the Relics to be carried to St. John the Baptist's. where they were kept, with bare feet (as is reported), the warmth of piety animating him, on the thirtieth day of the deposition of Giselher the Archbishop, carried them into the city; all with festive rite, as was fitting, receiving them: which he offered at the holy altar with the aforesaid gifts; and instituted that very day, in honor of the aforesaid Martyr, a celebrated one just as it is still held.

[32] Thus far the contemporary Author, How clearly it appears from number 24 of the Magdeburg matters here transcribed, that the Author, inserted in our Chronicle, lived in that time in which by writing the truth he could still offend the favorers and clients of Giselher; and so before Thietmar wrote his history; so deservedly I have judged those parentheses, "As is reported," and, "Just as it is still held," to be his who, transcribing them together with the Chronicle long afterward, interpolated them: but how long afterward, we shall more certainly establish, (but interpolated by the copyist of our manuscript) if, following out the context of the Chronicle itself, as far as it concerns Magdeburg, we consider its native brevity, such as it had been up to the year 938; about to find a Chronologer, touching indeed not rarely Magdeburg matters, but very succinctly; and chiefly intent on the deeds of the Caesars, to be noted year by year. Yet before I proceed to the following, I should not have neglected to indicate from Thietmar, and perhaps Tagmon himself, that Tagmon himself wrote something concerning his Ordination: for thus toward the end of book V I read, Because he, as his writing attests, was to be ordained by the Apostolic Pontiff alone, in those very words which a little above we noted. Hence I vehemently suspect that the whole insertion of the Chronicle, hitherto transcribed, is the work of Tagmon, commending the acts of his predecessors to posterity; and so much the more are we compelled to banish from the genuine context the interpolations of numbers 4, 5, 6 and following, sequestered by [].

[33] Nay, I would not fear to opine, that Tagmon himself was the author of transcribing the whole Chronicle up to this point, who continued the older Chronicle, and of augmenting it from the death of Henry the Fowler to his own times in all the more notable places, and finally of continuing it; if it can be called a little book, as above at number 9 we have seen it called. But why cannot even a larger book be called a little book by an Author belittling his own work? We have from the Monastery of St.-Denis near Paris a part of a very large and most ancient parchment Codex, containing, besides the Lives of twenty Saints, though the writer calls it a little book, the book of St. Gregory of Tours on the Glory of the Confessors; which being finished the copyist teaches, in what times this little book seems to have been written, etc., elsewhere produced entire. More strongly that opinion is weakened by the words, at the year 1009, after the ordination and passion of St. Bruno Archbishop and Martyr, thus described: The father of the aforesaid Bishop was called Bruno, his mother Ida, his brother Gevehard. Gevehard begot Burchard and Ida; [and the descendants of St. Bruno Bishop and Martyr from his brother may be read woven in there.] Burchard begot Gevehard, the father of Conrad Archbishop of Magdeburg; but Ida begot Gevehard the Count, the father of Lothair the Emperor. For he in the year 1025 was first elected King, crowned Emperor in the year 1033; that one succeeded St. Norbert in the year 1034: but Tagmon is said to have died in the year 1012. But why should not the same one who manifestly interpolated the Chronicle, as we now have it, in the places noted above, have also interpolated it with that genealogical digression, nowhere else used in the whole Chronicle? However it is, all the more prolix digressions concerning Magdeburg matters, and the praises of the Bishops and royal persons, in which the Chronicle hitherto abounds, have an end before the death of Tagmon, however long the Author afterward lived: but he who continued the Chronicle did not even indicate the death of Tagmon. His eulogy therefore from our manuscript of Thietmar receive, his fifth book ending almost thus.

[34] Thietmar of Merseburg praises Tagmon, He was the Cleric of the excellent Pontiff Wolfgang, who as a good Pastor had ruled the Church of Regensburg. To him this one was so dear, that, nurtured in the stead of a son from his first years, and now grown up, he set over all his goods: moreover he acquired for him the favor of the Duke and the Emperor to such a degree, that when by divine command he himself should be withdrawn from this life, this one was not doubted to be about to succeed him. The venerable Pontiff therefore, the course of this exile being consummated, in admirable sanctity, when he had now begun to be sick unto death, his beloved Tagmon being summoned to him, thus addresses him: "Put," he says, "dearest son, as the foster-son of St. Wolfgang of Regensburg, thy mouth upon my mouth, and receive from God the inspiration of my spirit; that wherever, with the ardor of youth growing warm, thou art cold in the twin charity, from supreme piety and benevolence toward me thou mayest receive the tempering of the Holy Spirit: and, if perchance thou shalt be deprived of my honors, who had foretold that after 20 years he would be Archbishop, after twice five solar years, when I shall have paid my faults with God, thou shalt for certain rejoice in greater ones." After this the holy man, when he foreknew in spirit his end to be at hand; ordered himself to be carried into the church: and the prayers being completed by him, and the rest which were to be done by the Brothers, commending himself with those committed to him to God, on the day before the Kalends of October * in peace sent forth his holy spirit.

[35] He therefore, elected by all, came to the Emperor, but did not obtain the promised, the Bishopric being given by the Emperor to his Chaplain Gebehard. To him this one is faithfully committed; and although he is honorably treated by him, and as most dear to St. Henry yet because good and evil are only relative to something, not a long time with him, on account of the inequality of his morals, he stayed. For he clung to Henry, then still a Duke, and on account of the chastity of mind and body pleased him in all things; and up to this day which I have aforementioned, irksome to the evil, and acceptable to the good, day and night he served him; striving so to expend all his own more particularly, that he might please both God and men. Wherefore in him is fulfilled by the King, out of love for the holy man uniquely beloved by him (inasmuch as he was the nurturer of the King himself), the truthful prophecy; ten years' courses being then run out, as the Lord Tagmon himself often related to me; who had honored his most dear Lord the King and Queen and his other companions with manifold gifts, as was fitting, his benignity by no means yet failing. The King therefore, going from Magdeburg with the same to his castle called Givikenstein, inspected singularly all the things which there were collected by Giselher, and attests these to be superfluous. Thence going to Merseburg, long widowed of a Pastor, for the sake of consolation, he strives as much as possible to restore the same to its former honors. There then the venerable Tagmon, on the fourth of the Nones of February, the Hypapante of the Lord, that is the meeting of the just Simeon, license having been received from Hilderic the Prelate, who was first in the order of these Brothers, was consecrated by Willigis the Archbishop of Mainz, the King being present and the Legate of the Roman See, who had him consecrated on the 2nd of February. and the other Bishops favoring these things. And because he, as his writing attests, being to be ordained by the Apostolic Pontiff alone, could not come hither on account of the instant necessity, there (that is at Merseburg) by the anointing of the sacred Chrism, he filled up the third number, that is he was made the third Archbishop of Magdeburg, and committed the whole Bishopric after himself to Walthard: but the King… whatever from his dearest Tagmon he demanded, this granting with abundance of good will, he received, in favor of the Bishopric of Merseburg.

[36] In the year 1012, all utilities in East Francia being completed (says the same Thietmar, book 6 after the middle), The same Tagmon in the year 1012 having fallen ill, the King visited the city of Merseburg

and there celebrated the holy Pentecost. In the early morning of the Lord's day, on which the Holy Spirit filled the Apostles, Bishop Tagmon began to fall ill, and on that day could not sing Mass. Then I, unworthy, was ordered to succeed to this office. The next day for a little while the Archbishop recovered, and walking to the King wearied himself too much, and afterward is so far slowed, that by himself he could never do anything. But my brother Sigfrid being summoned to him, now Abbot of New Corvey, and the Provost * Horic, to them he made his Confession, and received indulgence from them. But on the fifth weekday when he now wished to depart, to the King's chamber by his own seat he is carried; and, his cap raised from his head, addresses the King lying in bed: "Worthy thanks, my dearest Lord, may almighty God render thee, for all the mercy and grace, with which thou hast consoled me a pilgrim man; and may He give to thy benignity, in recompense for them, in the heavenly Jerusalem the reward, which He himself has prepared ineffable for His lovers: for me, from now on living, thou shalt not see; because now, as I hope, I am about to enter the way of all flesh. Farewell therefore, dearest Lord: farewell in the Lord."

[37] Thence coming to the church, he heard Mass, and blessed those present; then he is carried to the ship, in which to Givikenstein he was conducted: and on the Lord's day near his city, called * Spuizni, he came by boat. But on the second weekday, on the very journey, he dies on the 9th of June. when he had now almost failed, he called to him Walthard the Provost; and committing himself and his own to his faith, on the fifth of the Ides of June, he did not die; but to Christ, whom he always loved, he gladly went away. Prayer is made by the Confreres, with weeping mingled in; and Bodo the soldier is sent to the King, to indicate these things to him. and is carried to Magdeburg for burial. But the body of the Archbishop came to Frasa on that very day, and there, prepared with Priestly garments, is translated to his See, and with vast sadness is received by all. But I, learning all these things at Merseburg late, on the very day of the deposition, the sun being now risen, arrived. And when in the greater church I had poured out a few words of prayer; I came into the refectory, where the Provost with all the Brothers and Soldiers sitting, were treating of the election. In whose presence I, standing, wept much, moved by vehement grief: and, all being greeted, I sat down; and inquired what had been arranged by them.

* rather of November * otherwise Witganstein and Witgenstein. * otherwise Henric and Heric and having addressed the King last, * otherwise Spuitni.

§. V. The brief Archbishopric of Walthard, and his encomia from the same Thietmar.

[38] Thietmar advising and favoring, Liberal in praising Tagmon, Thietmar was even more profuse in commending his successor Walthard, who that he might be elected had chiefly himself brought about. For when, as already said, he had asked of the Brothers gathered in the Refectory, what had been arranged by them concerning the election; the Provost Walthard answered him; "We have sent our legate to the King, to indicate to him the evils which have befallen us, and to inquire his will in the things to be done. But the King himself sent to us Horic the Bishop, that an election be not made by us, but yet a unanimous consent be indicated to him from this: but in all these things the piety of all present has decreed me, though unworthy, to this, if God wills, and if the King consents." To whom thus I forthwith answered: "I am one of those who ought to be participants in this election and consecration: Walthard is elected; and this counsel I give you, and as far as I prevail I will help: let the King command what he wills; but you, what you have received from God and from the King's predecessors, see that you lose not. Thee therefore, Brother Walthard, to the Archbishopric I first elect; not out of love for thee, but out of the sure usefulness of all recognized in thee; and this I now singularly desire the mind of those present to know, that thou art elected by the Lord." All therefore with one voice answered, "Walthard we all elect as our Lord and Archbishop." These things thus accomplished he rose, and about to set out asked pardon, interceding with the divine piety, that He would deign to repay these things to us all. Then I, bowing myself, asked him, by the name of the Lord, and by the love of true brotherhood, that to my Church, much despoiled, the parish unjustly belonging to him, if he should reach this honor, he would either restore to me, or would be willing to confirm it to himself, with the other things taken thence, by the Sacraments. This therefore he firmly promised me in the presence of all.

[39] Wearied from the journey, the Prelate Horic meanwhile slept: which when it is announced to the King, Bishop Wigo also coming consolidated our election. There is therefore sent by us all Reding the Custodian of the church to the King, announcing our prayers, that mindful of the Lord and of his old promise, if it should ever so happen, he would be willing to console the family of St. Maurice, bereaved and too sad, with so great a Father. Prime sounding, Horic the Prelate wakes, and sang Mass for the Dead: but after the Gospel he made known to those present, for what the King had sent him hither, and made the Absolution for the deceased Archbishop with us, and asked it to be made by all: for it was the third day of his deposition, which with the seventh and thirtieth is to be celebrated in mind at the death of each of the faithful, containing in itself a mystery, that is for the faith of the most holy Trinity; and the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit. Thereupon the blessed body up to the place of the sepulchre they carry with song and lamentation; the obsequies of Tagmon are celebrated; and it was placed in the Western part, in the choir before the crypt, which he himself made and consecrated, and in which he, as long as he lived, caused himself to be buried before the altar, and where he often poured out tearful prayers. But Walthard provided this place, in which he now rests, because it was not dedicated, healthful for the soul, and conspicuous to all entering, for his beloved Senior.

[40] Since therefore all the Blessed live with Christ by their virtues, a man most adorned with all virtues, and in the world by writings; it seems worth the effort not to cover with silence the renowned conversation of so great a Father, but by the light of truth to make it known to all. He was just and fearing [God], and of wondrous charity: liberal, faithful, chaste, mild, prudent, and stable: a Canon indeed in habit, but a true Monk in all his conversation. The vices of all for the sake of betterment he sharply rebuked, praising whatever good things. There was not among the moderns any Pastor, who was more familiar to his Brothers: them above all he loved; he remembered them everywhere for good; and them before the King, and the Princes, and all peoples, within and without always praised. In the first year of his Ordination, he began to build a temple to the Lord. To the Priests and Deacons he increased their vestment by eight sets; to the Subdeacons and Children by four. Every day, unless infirmity hindered, he sang Mass and the Psalter: and because on account of weariness he could not fast, he redeemed this by a multitude of alms. In vigils he labored beyond measure: but because, on account of the infirmity of his teeth, he could eat little, he was easily satisfied with drink, though moderate. The noble in birth and morals he loved; but the ignoble he did not despise, but did not have in familiarity. The worshippers of Christ he loved; its despisers he persecuted with just hatred. All things divinely committed to him he diligently cultivated and strove to gain. Before he performed the divine Office, he conducted himself severely: which performed, to all he showed himself cheerful, and often with his own sang "Kyrie eleison." I certainly cannot enumerate how much piety and mercy he expended on my littleness: and most deserving of the Church of Merseburg and his own. this one thing I know, that I never with worthy recompense answered his liberality in these things. Harneburg, and Frasan, and Protine, cities, with a certain court which was Count Esico's, he acquired for his Church. An Episcopal apparatus, excellent enough and abundant, he gathered. Eight years and four months and eight days, as a column of the Church he sat; falling, as I said, in the present; but translated to the invisible temple of the Lord, he remains perpetually. On the same day Wunger, The death of Wunger Bishop of Poznań on the same day. Pastor of the monastery of Poznań, his Co-bishop and Suffragan, in the thirtieth year of his Ordination, died. These things therefore said let suffice: of him concerning whom I first began, I will set myself to speak.

[41] Reding coming to the King, presents his legation suppliantly; and although with difficulty, yet obtaining the desired things, through a legate, Walthard (zealous in the obsequies of his beloved Senior, and now bestowing twenty talents of silver, Walthard presented to the King, to Thideric my nephew in alms besides food) calls; I too being called, set out with him. On the Sabbath therefore we came to Grona late; and coming into the presence of the King, were kindly received. The King, having spoken a few words, permitted us to go to our lodging: for outside the city we were lodged, near the grove, where now is the church of St. Alexander the Martyr. The next day was a Sunday, and the solemnity of the precious Martyr Vitus the boy, Patron of Saxony, who rests in New Corvey: I too at early morning sang Mass of him with my Brothers. After which Mass called into the city, we came, and went up to the King's chamber: where Walthard alone is admitted, and there up to the Third hour they alone conversed. is gladly received by him: When behold Walthard, having gone out, bore a ring in his hand; and showing it to us, said: "Behold the pledge, the token of the future dignity, piously promised to me." And so into the presence of the King we are all admitted; and by his judgment, he himself first praising him, we elect the same as our Lord: and all the most upright aspired. Forthwith the King handed over the Pastoral Staff to him: and after the sacraments exhibited to the Royal dignity, he is led to the church, which, built by the King, his Predecessor had consecrated, and the praise of Christ is sung by those present…

[42] and by his command consecrated, On the next Sabbath Arnulf the Bishop by command of the King enthroned Walthard the Archbishop, and both were honorably and with great pleasantness received. But on the following day he was anointed by the same venerable third Bishop of the Church of Meissen, with the aid of the Co-bishops Wigo, Hildiward, Horic, and me, much inferior to them; Arnulf the Prelate also helped us. On the second weekday all with great charity departed: for it had been the vigil of St. John the Baptist. But Roding is constituted Provost by the Archbishop, by the common election of the Brothers. On the holy day to the mount with the usual honor led by me and my brother Sigfrid, Monk of St. Vitus, he is received. There then singing Mass, he instructed the peoples with the word of doctrine: but asked by the Abbot, he strives to reconcile to him Bolislav Duke of Poland, that he should there receive the charity-meal; on account of the crowd clinging to him, he omitted. He was on the Nativity of the Apostles in his See, and admonished those committed to him healthfully. Meanwhile by the messengers of Bolislav, Duke of Poland, of St. Henry,

as he is here called, the son-in-law, that is, kinsman by marriage, because he had as wife the sister of St. Cunegund the Queen, against whom with an army the King had decreed to go; by the messengers, I say, of Bolislav, the Archbishop being asked, for the sake of making peace came to Zicia: and there magnificently received, he stayed only two nights: but profiting nothing there, honored with great gifts he returns. Presently arrived the appointed day of the expedition proclaimed, that is on the ninth of the Kalends of August, near the place which is called * Zribenz we assembled; and so upward, up to near Belgori, we ascended. Then it seemed to the Princes, that it was not good for our journey to be completed, but to fortify the March with the best garrisons.

[43] On the following night the Archbishop is too much sick in the head: and when in the morning I had come to him, Presently, on the 25th of July, having fallen ill, I long awaited him delaying in the tent. Having at last come out, he complains to me, that he had been very ill: but he promised that he would come to the Queen, then staying at Merseburg, and would there address me. Then I departed. And first indeed refusing; yet because it was the finding of the Protomartyr of Christ and a Lord's day, he sang Mass, alas! the last. On the fifth weekday I, coming to Merseburg, while I prepared myself with my Brothers for his arrival; I heard from the intermediaries that he, being ill, was being conveyed by chariot from Givikenstein. On the first day I, riding thither, came, and Bernward Bishop of Hildesheim, for the sake of blessing, he is visited by Thietmar on the 8th of August. and of whom he was skilled by grace of healing, summoned I found, and Frithric the brother of Count Dedi. And when I had entered, the Archbishop sat on his seat, and received me charitably: and seeing his feet relaxed from their usual swelling, he grieved: because while these swelled, his belly was more lightly affected. To me also standing by he intimated, that if he had escaped this peril sound, none of his friends could have been more faithful to me than he. I stayed then there until evening, and then unwilling returned, because on the morrow was the Vigil of Christ's athlete Lawrence, whose festivity was at hand on the Lord's day: on which when I preached a few things to the peoples arriving, I suppliantly asked of all that prayer be made for the sick Archbishop.

[44] and by the same on the 12th of August having returned, On the third weekday before Prime I returned to him; and there Eid the Bishop, much laboring in prayer for him, I found: and when I had entered the chamber, in which he lay, I neither heard him speaking, nor saw him well recognizing anyone. He still living, Arnulf and Hildeward, with Meinwerc and Horic the Co-bishops visited him. These together blessing him, and making indulgence, commended him to Christ: but I a sinner anointed him with sanctified Oil in the places most paining. Jaromir also the Duke was present, whom his brother Othelric and a satellite, unmindful of all duty, on the Holy Sabbath of the Lord's resurrection next, he is anointed in the presence of Jaromir Duke of Bohemia, expelled from the kingdom of the Bohemians; and compelled to seek flight to Bolislav, whom, although a friend to himself by consanguinity, yet up to now he held for an enemy, in persecution. He, because he knew the Archbishop to be merciful enough to all in labor; hoping his recovery, for obtaining the King's favor, sought his intercession: and when he saw this one now failing; he asks that he be committed to his right hand, and through it to us, tears poured out. But the Archbishop, when his end was now at hand, seeing I know not what to the left, fortified himself with the sign of the Cross with his powerful right hand: and turned away in body and countenance, as if about to weep, contracted his face, and immediately glad let go.

[45] Considering this, for sorrow I go out. Meanwhile those present, and piously dies on the same day. seeing him half-alive, lifted him from the bed, and laid him upon a carpet. But the lights being kindled, I was called within: and him, clad in a Stole, laboring in his agony, I saw: upon whose breast the holy Cross was placed; and in his hands ash, and beneath a hair-shirt he had, as Eid the Bishop showed. And when the sun at midday declined, with incense applied to him on the day before the Ides of August, his soul passed to its Creator, whence it was, leaving what it was not. While therefore all present prayed and sang psalms with weeping, I unhappy for my duty did not help them. But what then occurred to my mind, I cannot disclose to any of the faithful; but let him only pray this with me, that the Lord, to whom no secret is hidden, may impute this neither to him nor to me. After this, his viscera being loosed within the chamber, and buried in the church, the body is prepared, and presented at the holy altar. There then memory being made for the dead, we there sang, and the body that day accompany up to Conire: and on the way the mourning family meets us.

[46] the body with great mourning is received at Magdeburg: On the morrow, when we had come to the village next to the mount of St. John; the whole Clergy weeping was present, and the synagogue of the Jews; and a great multitude of orphans, of whom he was the father, assembled, manifesting the grief of their heart by weeping. But we, entering the greater church with the funeral, friends with all the heirs, with hands lifted in mourning, miserably receive [him]. Who then would not weep, when he saw such sad things? But all this lamentation was not equaled by a new loss. Thideric, Thietmar's nephew, is elected. We therefore all the Brothers, gathering to the Chapter, elected my nephew, with the exception of a certain Benno; not hoping that this could be fulfilled on account of his youth, but for the sake of preserving the election, and out of charity toward Archbishop Tagmon doing this chiefly. But evening now being made Arnulf the Bishop came, The death of Walthard is announced to the King, then staying at Metz. favoring us with whatever good things he could. On the following day, the election renewed, the body of the Archbishop is buried, at the right hand of his Predecessor in the southern apse, on the Vigil of the Assumption of St. Mary. All these things as soon as the Queen learned, through Gezo her cupbearer, she announced to the King, sitting with his army near the city of Metz: who, wondering vehemently at them, and inquiring and hearing how our affairs stood; through the same one she should administer the kingdom, up to his arrival, he speedily charged her.

[47] Thus far Thietmar: whose History if he had had who then was continuing our Chronicle, of whom above; as a little after another Continuator had it; he would no doubt have wished to add more, concerning the death of Tagmon, Thietmar made Bishop in the year 1009, and the election and death of Walthard: where now in a whole decade he wrote nothing concerning Magdeburg, except that in the year of the Lord 1009 Wipert Bishop of Merseburg died, to whom Thietmar succeeded. Likewise that in the same year Alfker Abbot of the monastery of St. John the Baptist at Magdeburg died, to whom presently Sigfrid, brother of the aforesaid Bishop Thietmar succeeded, elected from the same Congregation. And in the year of the Lord 1012 Walthar, Archbishop of Magdeburg, attained his end, about to reign more happily with the Lord. But he lived after the death of the Prelate Tagmon thrice three in the number of weeks, and one night: but he sat in the Bishopric for 7 weeks and two nights, preaching with his mouth the triune and one God, anointed with the Holy Spirit, preparing peace toward one another… in the love of God and neighbor. And afterward. In this year too was begun the foundation of the church of St. John the Baptist, in the suburb of the city of Parthenopolis by the Lord Abbot Sigfrid, in the 4th year of his Ordination. Nor more there concerning these things. But Thietmar thus proceeds.

[48] The Epitaph of the Archbishop, to be imprinted, Reader, not on any stone, but on a mindful heart, hear. Thietmar writes an Epitaph for Walthard: Walthard, although it is interpreted Hard-Power, severe in the open, was felt most mild in secret. He was a man temperate, well-mannered: in the twin love he was strong, in supreme religion he flourished. Frequent in vigils, he prayed in tears: liberal in alms, he brought help to the wretched. Honored by these virtues, he pleased the King and the Primates: by the former he was loved, by the latter venerated. Him his Predecessor surpassed in blessing and name alone. Of his Church in all things he was the most strong defender. Without any boasting he expended very much on his neighbors. In my hearing he swore, and affirmed for true, that not through ambition had he sought this honor; but for the utility of the Church laboring, and now almost failing. "I know," he said, "that I am unworthy to undertake this office. There are these two Brothers, whom I would gladly have elected, if I had known it could in any way so be done." A just man and tenacious of his purpose was he. To be praised by others he did not desire, nor did he himself detract from others. His genealogy he drew from most noble births, which he exalted by good morals. His father was called Erp, who was adorned with a praiseworthy life, dear to all his contemporaries. His mother, Amulrad by name, both flourishing in chastity and in good work, in good fame went before other matrons.

[49] then he attests his Episcopate, but brief, To the aforesaid Archbishop it had before been said in sleep, that he should receive the Archbishopric at Magdeburg, and possess it a modest time. And in this year, in which this was to be fulfilled, to a certain venerable matron her mother, now deceased, appeared through a vision. Who when she was saluted by her, and asked how she did; answered, "Well"; and added: "Dost thou know, that our Archbishop Tagmon is to migrate from this world, foretold to a pious matron in a vision: and Walthard to succeed him? But he shall not reign here at all long, but in the last examination is to sit among those judging. For by him in the heavens is a tablet of silver, almost finished: which the more swiftly completed, he is to be taken from the sight of men, about to receive worthy rewards." But he himself, as his lay sister related to me (for he had another a Nun), and that he himself was foreknowing of his death, foreknowing this very thing, called her to him, saying: "Dost thou remember, sister, that thou once promisedst me, if thou shouldst ever succeed to my inheritance, that thou wouldst hand over the estate, which I have in * Osulfestede, for the remedy of my soul to St. Maurice?" To whom professing all these things, and confirming with her finger (as he himself asked), weeping she answered: "It is not permitted me now to live: but do thou as thou hast said: and know for certain, that to you my sisters of the remainder I will alienate nothing." She knew therefore that these things were to be fulfilled: but he hoped for a longer time. Twenty-eight years he was Provost, which office before all his contemporaries he honorably held.

[50] and well-deserving above others who sat long, A vast sarcophagus, for enclosing the Relics of the Saints, of silver he made. The round Church, after the burning of the city fallen down, from the foundation he raised; and there proposed to make a Congregation of Canons, and willed to give them estates of his own. He was not wordy: but the secret of conscience to be opened at fitting times he covered. This one thing above all he lamented, that he had not blessed the Churches and Clergy; but concerning the Pallium he grieved nothing. A very great abundance of books and Priestly apparatus, with very many things looking to secular matters, he gathered: all which, in his sudden end,

the hands of many useless men dispersed: for he sat only seven weeks and two days. These things I have therefore said, that of his swift death let no one wonder, neither openly nor in secret, or judge that this befell by his own special fault: for many before him sat thirty years and more, who were neither here nor in the future of such merit. Woe to those who in this pilgrimage live long, and lose their time by working badly: but on the contrary it is well with those who lead the days granted them with cautious solicitude in the service of Christ. All who work badly by a long life increase their punishments: but on the contrary those whose present life is shortened, if they are evil, quickly atone for their misdeeds; but all the good, even if they do not equally pass their time here in body, yet rejoice in one felicity. But he was not the only one who sat so short a time: for we read that Tertullinus received from St. Stephen the Pope the dignity of the Priesthood; and after four days, for the love of Christ and the constancy of faith, received martyrdom from a tyrant; and in both orders he shall ever remain. This one indeed atoned for his sins here, and in a short time for his just labors received the prize from God: and that this is so was immediately manifest to many.

[51] that he appeared to him on the 28th of October But to relate all these things is too long: yet how concerning these it happened to me (I call God to witness, that I lie not) I will explain. I was in the garrison of Meissen, and on the Nativity of the Apostles Simon and Jude, after Matins, that venerable man appeared to me. And when I well remembered him dead, I forthwith inquired, how his affairs stood. To these he says: I had been in punishments according to the quality of merit, all which I have now wholly overcome. And I exceedingly glad, say: Is it permitted me to sound the bells, now expiated; and to rouse the peoples to the praise of God? He answered, It is well permitted: because it is true. And I, advancing further in speaking, said: Is it known to you, that by the whispering of many the mind of the King has been alienated from you, because after your Ordination you strove to work many things against him? But he answered: Believe me, I beseech, believe (redoubling the word) that of this matter I am altogether blameless. And when I wished to question him, and received into heaven on the 1st of November. why he died so soon, I awoke, and to know this was not permitted me. Afterward from certain religious and truthful men I learned, that he on the commemoration of all the Saints merited to be clemently presented to the divine sight. All the things which I have said concerning him, I have not brought forward for any special love of him: because it is true, that before his blessing he loved me moderately; and for the defense of his Church, he hindered many of my matters. For the sake of truth and for avoiding the reproach to follow, I have spoken these things: yet less than they were, because he left no one better after him.

* otherwise the 7th * otherwise Ungerus * otherwise Tribenz. * otherwise Osulstidi

§. VI. The succession of the other Archbishops, up to St. Norbert and beyond, from our manuscript.

[52] After so long a digression Thietmar returns to the succession of the Prelates of Magdeburg, about to proceed no further than the next Ordination, in this manner: After his (namely Walthard's) burial, Horic the Bishop, on our part is sent to the King with the election: to whom I committed a letter, The King destining the See to Gero his Chaplain, written for the detriment of my Church, and admonishing the clemency of the King… The King meanwhile having returned from the Western expedition, attempts to set Gero his Chaplain in the empty throne. To him the Prelate Horic running to meet, and opening to him his legation, is not heard. Thideric my nephew, called to Grona, came, and by the King is received by the hands, and is thenceforth held in place of Gero. On the Nativity of St. Matthew the Apostle he came to Sehausen: and I approaching, when it was now time, admonished him before all sitting by, that something concerning my parish and other things unjustly taken away, before the constitution of the Archbishop, for him receives Thiederic the Elect, he would be willing to treat with him. He therefore committed me to his firm faith; that with justice, or with some other healthful counsel these things might be finished. On the following day the King coming to Magdeburg, in the refectory of the Brothers made us all assemble. Here therefore at the King's petition, the election being reserved for the future, Gero is commonly elected. And so in the church first delivering himself to the altar, and obtains the election of Gero. and acquiring for the community of the Brothers ten manses, he received the Pastoral Staff from the King. But presently enthroned, he was anointed by Eid the Bishop, we the other Co-bishops helping him. The festivity of the Theban Martyrs is there celebrated by the King, and afterward he is honored by the Archbishop with all his great gifts.

[53] These things from the sixth book of the Chronicle of Thietmar related, what beyond I should add concerning the affairs of the Archbishops of Magdeburg I find nothing, The glory of his predecessors is revealed, although there still follow two books: except that in book VII where the holy death of a certain Irmgard is described, ministering in the round church, she is said the day before she paid the debt of the flesh (but she paid it on the 11th of the Kalends of June) being made in an ecstasy of mind, and brought into the presence of the holy Mother of God: where she merited that Tagmon and Walthard and Eid, the venerable Prelate of Meissen, shining with great honor, should indulge her. The same things in the same words, The death of Thietmar in the year 1019: and so from the same source whence Thietmar received, are read in our manuscript Chronicle, which he who continued, concluded the year 1019 thus: Thietmar of pious memory, Bishop of Merseburg, migrated to Christ: to whom Bruno succeeded. His Life, written a little after his death, Vossius alleges in his book on the Latin Writers, which it would be worth the effort to have for adorning a new edition of that most beautiful Chronicle, of which here we have given specimens. his Life soon written is missing. But the rest concerning Gero the Archbishop receive from our manuscript, of the author then living, and writing the affairs year by year as they were done: for thus he says at the end of the year 1022; In the royal presence, between the twin Prelates, namely Gero and Arnulf, a wicked and to be execrated by every age sedition arises: therefore wicked, because dangerous: therefore dangerous, because not about to perish, but (as I fear) about to ruin them, and about to last awaiting the death of both, which plainly sound that the author was writing in that very year. But such a one thus proceeds.

[54] In the year 1023, Gero Archbishop of Magdeburg, Gero dies in the year 1026 on the 21st of September. consumed by many pains, on the 11th of the Kalends of November dying to the world, but living to Christ; migrated. He, with the counsel of his faithful, exchanged the Hospice, which the first Otto had constructed in the village which is called Rothardestorp; and a monastery being made within the city, in honor of the most holy Mother of God Mary, the same estates, whence before the necessaries were furnished to the soldiers of Christ, namely the needy, the founder of one monastery, with other goods, acquired at his own cost, conferred on the same church, and constituted a Provostship there. Another church besides in honor of Blessed John the Evangelist he constructed and dedicated: and to the Canons there serving God of his own property, whence there should be sufficient food and clothing for them, and the founder of a new Canonry: he assigned, and the state of the place with those churches honorably amplified. The walls of the city nonetheless, which the Pious Emperor Otto left unfinished, this one completed. The house also of St. Maurice, with various ornaments and buildings of the Bishopric, he renovated: and all things in his diocese, both externally and internally by improving renewed. But he died in the village of Vaddarroth, in the parish of Halberstadt, leaving to posterity very many monuments of his industry. Menfrid succeeds, then Engelhard, From this point in our manuscript a long silence concerning Magdeburg, nor any word there of Hunerid, by others Menfrid, whom Strevesdorff says, taken from the monastery of Würzburg, died in the year 1051 on the 1st of March: nothing also of his successor, whom the same Strevesdorff says was requested from the same monastery of Würzburg, and preferred to Winfrid aspiring to the same dignity; except this only: In the year of the Lord 1063… Eggilhard Archbishop of Magdeburg dies: and to him in the year 1063 Wezilo, in whose place is constituted Wezilo, who is also Werner, brother of Anno Archbishop of Cologne, of whom afterward at the year 1078 I read there: Henry the King meets Rudolf, elected against him in schism, hastening against him with a strong band, near Strowi, and battle being joined not a few on both sides are laid low, and the victory becomes uncertain. Where by common men Wecil, Archbishop of Magdeburg, standing on the Catholic part for Rudolf, in flight is slain. Strevesdorff adds, on the 6th of August, according to the manuscript Annals, as he says, and names as successor Hardric or Harderic; in our manuscript called Hardwig.

[55] then in the year 1078 Harderic, or Hardwig, That Hardwig in the same our manuscript at the end of the year 1082 is read, Godescalc and Giffred the Bishops assisting him, to have consecrated the monastery of St. John the Baptist, in the suburb of the city of Magdeburg. There also at the year 1085 in the assembly of Princes, who on the 13th of the Kalends of February had assembled at Perestad a village of Thuringia, to discuss so immortal a controversy (such as had emerged between Pope Gregory VII and the Antipope), he is said also to have been present: with seven other Archbishops and Bishops, who stood by Gregory, namely the one of Ostia, of Salzburg, of Hildesheim, of Halberstadt, of Verdun, of Merseburg, of Zeitz, of Meissen, and the designated of Paderborn, is numbered in the second place Hartwich of Magdeburg, preferring the reproach of Christ to the treasures of the Egyptians: which also by the thing itself he showed, when for the defense of the true Roman Pontiff, he was a fugitive from his See. For nearly all Saxony falling away to the excommunicated Henry; in the year 1085 for the cause of the faith an exile in Denmark, to it he came about summer, and a camp being placed near Magdeburg in the green meadows, with his Nobles entered the city, and there was received in royal manner. But because on account of the fear of him coming the Archbishop Hardwig with the Bishop of Halberstadt and Hermann the King had gone to the Danes, as he had before conceived in his mind; Henry in his place substituted Hartwig, Abbot of Hersfeld; in his place another Hartwig, Abbot of Hersfeld, is intruded. and for Burchard of Halberstadt, Amizo a Canon of the same Church. He did not therefore die as is read in Strevesdorff in the year 1078: but perhaps this is a typographic error, for 1087: nor would I understand of him, probably dead in Denmark, but of his Synonym intruded and schismatic, what is held in our manuscript at the year 1103. Hartwig Archbishop of Magdeburg died by a sudden death: taken off by a sudden death in the year 1103: whose intestines are buried at St. John's, the rest of the body in the church of St. Maurice.

[56] To him succeeded Henry, in the same year elected by the Clergy and people, Strevesdorff says elected in Catholic manner, when to the excommunicated Henry either authority or life had failed. He was altogether living; but since our Chronicle

our Chronicle at the year 1106 says concerning him, by the Catholics Henry is elected that he wished to invade Saxony, on account of certain Catholics, with a hostile band, but could not, because his son detested him, as also all the faithful, because he was denounced as excommunicated by the Apostolic Pontiffs Gregory, Urban, and Paschal. But those Catholics we can opine were the people of Magdeburg, who, the King unconsulted, had elected for themselves that Henry, brought thither, after he had been by the Church of Paderborn cast out by the tyrant as Strevesdorff writes, expelled from Paderborn by the schismatics. which tyrant first in the year 1107 dies at Liège on the 7th of the Ides of August and is buried at Speyer: but in the year next following Henry Bishop of Magdeburg dies; to whom Adelgot in the same year succeeded. Adelgot Krantz praises much in the Metropolis book 5 chapter 32. Strevesdorff says he died in the year 1118, To him in the year 1108 Adelgot succeeds, of whom nothing in our manuscript as neither of his successor, but only that in the year 1125 Ruker (assuredly substituted for Adelgot) Archbishop of Magdeburg died.

[57] then Ruker, In the year next following, to Ruker succeeds Norbert in the See of Magdeburg: of whom further at the year 1132 it is read, that King Lothair, after the Assumption of St. Mary celebrated at Merseburg, being about to cross into Lombardy; because the Archbishop of Cologne was absent, who by right ought to be Chancellor in those parts, Norbert Archbishop of Magdeburg was deputed to this office. Then it is added at the year 1128, that on the Commemoration of St. Paul the Apostle there was made the greatest commotion of the citizens at Magdeburg, against Norbert the Archbishop, and to him in the year 1126 St. Norbert, because he had purified the greater Church, as had been told him, polluted in the night time. The tumult therefore growing, he ascended into the upper parts of the older monastery with the Bishops of Meissen and Havelberg, and the Provost of the greater Monastery; and there for a long time was besieged; the adversaries raging and reviling, that he had broken the altars, and stolen away the Relics of the Saints by theft. But him divine grace wonderfully snatched from their snares; and excommunicating those persisting in evil, died in 1134: he subjected them to himself. Finally in the year 1134 the Emperor celebrated Pentecost at Merseburg, and on the fourth weekday of the same week Norbert Bishop of Magdeburg dies: and on the second weekday of the following week in the monastery of St. Mary he is buried. The festivity of the Apostles Peter and Paul the Emperor celebrated at Magdeburg: then Conrad: and Conrad a Canon of the same Church, the Emperor himself consenting, by the general election of the Clergy and People is constituted Archbishop. He, the great-grand-nephew on the brother's side of St. Bruno Bishop and Martyr (as said at number 75), in the year 1139, after Easter, with Duke Henry and other Princes aiding him, besieged, took, and destroyed the castle of Count Bernard, Plozeke. But the festivity of the Assumption of St. Mary approaching, the same Archbishop, with the Duke and the aforesaid Princes near Cruciburg met against the King (Conrad), who strove with all his might to enter Saxony in hostile manner and to devastate it. There an agreement being made through intermediaries, peace was confirmed up to an appointed time.

[58] to him in the year 1142 Frederick, And finally in the year 1142 Conrad Archbishop of Magdeburg died… and there succeeds Frederick in the Archbishopric, Custodian of the greater church and Provost of Bivere. He in the year 1145 on the Nativity of the Lord contracting a great part of the allod of Lord Hartwic and his mother Richardis, benefices and copious money being given, into the property of the Church of Magdeburg, left to posterity a great and glorious memorial of his name. But in the year 1148 about the feast of St. Peter, by divine inspiration and the exhortation of the Apostolic authority, and the admonition of many Religious, a treaty being entered into between Frederick Archbishop of Magdeburg, and many others both Bishops and Secular Princes, who are enumerated in the Chronicle, a great multitude of the Christian soldiery against the pagans, dwelling toward the north, the sign of the life-giving Cross being taken up, went forth; that it might either subject them to the Christian Religion, or, God helping, utterly destroy them… All these therefore, with the greatest apparatus and supply and wonderful devotion, in various parts entered the land of the pagans; and the whole land trembled before their face: and for nearly three months by traversing they laid all waste; cities and towns they set on fire; the shrine also with the idols, which was before the city of Malchon, with the city itself they burned up. But in the following year he, and certain other Princes of Saxony, meeting the Polish Dukes Boleslav and Mieszko, on the Epiphany of the Lord at Crusawike, entered a treaty of friendship with them. Finally in the year 1153 Frederick Archbishop of Magdeburg died.

[59] To Frederick is said to have succeeded Wigmann, taken from the Bishopric of Zeitz or Naumburg; then Wigmann in the year 1167 of whom in the Chronicle nothing is read, except that in the year 1166 there was war between Duke Henry and Wigmann the Archbishop and the other Princes of Saxony; and that in the year 1179 the Archbishop of Magdeburg, with the Princes of the East and the Archbishop of Cologne, besieged the town of Haldesleve: where discord arising among them, they returned from the siege without effect. Finally the Chronicle ends in the year 1188 with these words: up to the year 1193, The city of Magdeburg, by the hidden, yet just, judgment of God, on the Vigil of Pentecost (then the 4th of June) was almost wholly burned: the church of St. Mary, the church of St. Sebastian the Martyr, with the parishes and chapels were burned, 12. But that Wigmann survived this disaster Krantz says up to the 25th of August 1193. By this fire I would believe there perished, whatever was there written concerning the miracles of St. Norbert; Norbert's Epitaph renewed under him. the sepulchre also could have been corrupted, and then repaired in that form and manner, in which it was found in the year 1625; when also there was written or renewed the Epitaph, which in Pagi, in his Library, is read thus: Norbert by the grace of God Bishop of the holy Church of Magdeburg, Institutor of the Premonstratensian Order, and restorer of this monastery, is laid under this marble. He died in the year of the Lord 1134, on the 6th of June.

§. VII. The title of Primate of Germany, in what manner, and how long after the death of St. Norbert, it accrued to the Archbishop of Magdeburg.

[60] To Krantz asking whence this title, Albert Krantz, Dean of the College of Hamburg, who died in the year 1516, in the work which he inscribed Metropolis book 3 chapter 28, treating of the Church of Magdeburg, says: In what manner, and whence it obtained, that its Archbishop is called Primate of Germany, I have not yet ascertained. Yet knowing that some Archbishops do not yield to him in honor (for the Archbishop of Salzburg contends with him concerning parity, nor do the Elector Archbishops yield him the place) whence and in what he holds the Primacy, I would wish it shown me from elsewhere. To the discussion of this question, it is answered that it was in use, it pleases to ascend from the better-known and more certain through the grades of times. And first Pope Leo IX, in his Brief to Albert of Brandenburg in Strevesdorff page 41, given under the date of the year 1518, declaring him a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church: Thou, he says, from the Churches of Mainz, an Elector of the Empire; and of Magdeburg, Primate of Germany, in the Church and field of the Lord wast great and rich. In the year 1447, John Bishop of Merseburg, writing to the venerable men the Lords Rector, Masters, and Doctors of the gracious University of the Study of Leipzig, in the same Strevesdorff page 37, and declaring that he had declared himself for the Lord Nicholas then Pope, just as also the other Princes both spiritual and secular; Thus, he says, the Most Reverend in Christ Father and our Lord, the Lord Frederick Archbishop of Magdeburg and Primate of Germany, before the 15th century: who is our Metropolitan, has declared himself with his aforesaid Clergy for our Lord Pope Nicholas.

[61] Older even than that one, Theodoric a Niem, the Pontifical Scribe, in his book on the Privileges and rights of the Empire in Meibom, after the Chronicle of Witikind, when he had set forth the foundation of the Church of Magdeburg and the ordination of its Suffragans, made by Otto I, says: The Archbishop of Magdeburg, who should be for the time, procured to be made Primate of Germany through the Pope of his age. Add to these the Interpolator, such as he is, of our Chronicle, either equal to or older than Theodoric: who since he ought to be presumed to have spoken from the usage of his time, ought also to be presumed to have written then, when already into oblivion had come the true beginning of such a title, and so after about a hundred years, which is reckoned a space of immemorial time. That the title is not much more ancient, the history of the first Institution in the Synods of Ravenna and Rome persuades me, and its Synopsis in Thietmar, and the perpetual silence of our Chronicle on that matter, except in that part, which we have convicted of certain fiction and novelty. To the same makes the Epitaph of St. Norbert, St. Norbert prior to the same in which that title does not seem it could have been omitted, if truly he himself had ever used it: which indeed he did not do in the diploma, produced above in the Analecta, by which he transfers the church of St. Mary into the right of his Premonstratensians in the year 1129. Not therefore are those to be blamed, by prolepsis he is so called. who, relying on the usage of four centuries, added to the other titles of their Founder the Primacy of Germany: which could even be given to him by a fiction of law, by which titles acquired by descendants are commonly attributed to ancestors.

[62] John Latomus errs further, The first to have exceeded in this seems John Latomus, Dean of Frankfurt, in the year 1567 still living, whose Codex concerning Mainz matters, under the mark MSL, our Serarius alleges again and again, and from it book 5 page 811 at the year 1135 describes this fragment. They assert (would that he added, Who!) that in this age Norbert Archbishop of Magdeburg, from Innocent II obtained the Primacy of Germany for himself and his successors, when he was at Rome with the Emperor Lothair in the year 1135. But before, the Archbishop of Mainz was preferred to the other Prelates in Germany, as above in Hatto and others appears. Yet it seems in the Epistle of Benedict the Fifth to the Bishops of Germany (in which also mention is made of Rupert of Mainz, the predecessor of Willigis) the Archbishop of Magdeburg is called Patriarch of Germany. Relying (as I think) on this authority, an Anonymous Premonstratensian, probably a Frank, and following him another more recent one, from whose style is had the Life of the holy Founder, prefixed to book 2 of the Premonstratensian Library, where he, while in chapter 39, the year being concealed, which Latomus had unskillfully noted as 1135 for 1133, describes the matter itself more copiously in this manner. Peter the Antipope being driven out, to the legitimate and supreme Pontiff Innocent the Lateran See is restored. who to this title Which business happily accomplished, to King Lothair in turn, as a reward of piety, the title of Augustus, with solemn ceremony, is conferred: and Norbert, by the spontaneous [act] of both the Pontifical and Imperial Majesty together (for he himself did not aspire to it) is called Primate of Germany. For with that Primacy, or supreme inspection and jurisdiction, over all the Archbishops of Germany, once the Emperor Otto, the First by name, by the assent and counsel of the supreme Pontiff and the Council of Ravenna, he annexes jurisdiction, had caused the Church of Magdeburg to be adorned, as from the letters of Benedict

Pope VI to the Archbishops of Germany, concerning St. Pilgrim and the Church of Passau in the year 973, is clear, where Albert, the first Archbishop of the Metropolitan Church of Magdeburg, is named Patriarch of Germany. The Church of Magdeburg therefore is, above the rest, the Churches of Mainz, Cologne, over all the Archbishops of Germany, Trier, Salzburg, Bremen, and Riga, the Archiepiscopal Churches of Germany, throughout all Germany already of old honored.

[63] I do not wonder that the Frankish writer received these things so much the more confidently as most certain, as the less he could distrust Serarius alleging Latomus's manuscript Codex without any hesitation among the people of Mainz themselves. which the people of Magdeburg never pretended But I wonder that Serarius did not observe, how little these things cohere among themselves, that Benedict, not the 5th or 6th, but the 7th of that name, called the Archbishop of Magdeburg Patriarch of Germany; and that his successors so neglected so specious a title, that it was needful for it to be obtained as a new privilege by Norbert, and that in the year 1135, who died in 1134: and that neither he himself nor Latomus considered, how much the things there asserted exceed all that we have hitherto seen the somewhat more ancient people of Magdeburg dare to pretend. This excess, scarcely tolerable to learned men, noted Bernard Malinkrot, Dean of Münster, in the Additions to his treatise on the Arch-chancellors and Chancellors of the Empire, chapter 4, which is on the Primacy of the three Metropolitan Churches of Germany, but only said themselves similar to them in honor. namely of Trier, Mainz, and Magdeburg, page 196. For when he had brought the words of the Chronicle, or more truly of the Interpolator, related in our manuscript at the year 970, "to have the Primacy of all the churches of the Archbishops who are ordained in Germany; in Gaul also, to be in all things similar in honor to the Archbishops of Cologne, Mainz, Trier"; when, I say, Malinkrot had alleged these words, thus he begins: They differ far, to be prior in Dignity, and to be similar in Honor; and besides by an express term are distinguished from each other those Transrhenane Archbishoprics from the Germanic ones. But what even of that diminished prerogative, which the said Interpolator attributes to the people of Magdeburg, is there similar in the Acts of the Council? or what mention of jurisdiction extended over the other Archbishoprics? Of this at least even one single act, through seven centuries now elapsed, ought to have been produced.

[64] Now as to the Epistle of Benedict, it is inscribed To the most beloved sons in Christ, Hrodbert, Benedict 6 indeed names Adalbert of the holy Church of Mainz; and Dietric, of the holy Church of Trier; and Adalbert, of the holy Church of Magdeburg; and in like manner to Gereon, of the holy Church of Cologne; and to Frederick, of the holy Church of Salzburg; but also to Adaldag, of the holy Church of Bremen, Archbishops; and likewise to the Lord Otto, the most glorious Emperor; and to his nephew Henry, the most excellent Duke of the Bavarians; and to all the other Bishops and Abbots, Dukes and Counts, of Gaul and Germany, after the one of Mainz and the one of Trier, before the rest; as is to be seen in Volume IX of the Councils of the latest edition column 718 and 19. Nowhere there appears the word, Patriarch. But that to the one of Mainz and the one of Trier the first places are assigned, I judge to be attributed to the far greater antiquity of both Archbishoprics than that of the others; that to the one of Cologne, of Salzburg, and of Bremen the one of Magdeburg is preferred, argues some special honor of his for then, therefore probably attributed to Adalbert, because either Otto had so established, for the order of sitting to be kept in the Diets, which order through the institution of the seven Electors was afterward changed, but he does not call him Primate, much less Patriarch. or because by the hands of the Roman Pontiff himself he had been consecrated; and indeed so, that the third Archbishop Tagmon pretended this to be of perpetual right (for the second, taken from the Bishopric of Merseburg, needed not a new Ordination), and therefore, as we saw at number 31, thought it necessary to excuse the cause of the present necessity, on account of which he suffered himself to be ordained elsewhere and by another than at Rome by the Apostolic Pontiff: by which right however none of the successors is read to have used, inasmuch as it brought no less of burden than of honor.

[65] But this place seems to require, that concerning the old dignity of the other Archbishoprics I should briefly discourse. The Primacy of Gaul or Belgic Germany And first concerning the one of Trier: which, the most ancient of all the Archbishoprics existing under the Empire, is found to have claimed for itself the Primacy of Belgic Gaul, or (as others call it) of Lower Germany, by the Privileges of SS. Sylvester and Hilary the Pontiffs: which although they are said to have perished by fire, yet by the prerogative of possession or prescription defending the same Primacy for himself, Theobald the Prelate in the year 969 obtained from John XIII a bull, which Brouwer produces, where it is established, that whenever from the Apostolic See an ordinary Legate for the matter of the Church or of convening a Synod shall be destined into Gaul or Germany, the Prelate of Trier after the same shall hold the first place among the other Pontiffs: and, if a Missus of the Roman Church be absent, similarly after the Emperor or King he shall have the Primacy of sitting, of declaring sentence, and of canonically promulgating the Synodal judgment, inasmuch as constituted in those parts the Vicar of the Apostolic See. For neither, says the Pontiff, is it worthy, it is confirmed to the one of Trier, in the year 969 and 1049. that the Prelate of that Church should at any time be held not preferred to the rest, whose honor in those parts under the very Prince of the Apostles was primitive. The same confirming by another Bull Leo IX in the year 1049, attests, that, the Privileges of that Church being read in the Church of St. Peter, and namely the former Bull, by all it was acclaimed, that by right the Primacy is owed to you (the Pontiff addresses Eberhard present) and your successors, who sit in the Chair of the disciples of Peter; wherefore all themselves praising and approving, for the investiture of that Primacy we have marked your head with the Roman mitre, which you and your successors in ecclesiastical Offices in the Roman manner may always use.

[66] Equal or even greater things, although the origin of the right is not pretended so ancient as is pretended by the one of Trier, The one of Mainz is found Primate of Germany from the year 857, you may find for the one of Mainz. The Annals published by Pithou, which he not vainly judges were written at Mainz in the time of Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mainz up to the year 857, that is nearly a century and a half before Magdeburg was thought of, call Mainz the Metropolis of Germany: and Witikind the Saxon, contemporary with Otto, calls its Prelate Supreme Pontiff. But who would believe, that the Emperor, who proceeded to the institution of Magdeburg so modestly, that against the will of Bernard Bishop of Halberstadt he did nothing, but as long as he lived suspended the decree of the Synod of Ravenna; would have wished his son William, then Archbishop of Mainz, to deprive of the Primatial title; or to exact from the Otto substituted for him more than that he should yield his jurisdiction as Archbishop over the Bishoprics, to be subjected to the new Archbishopric: which he could do without detriment to his Primacy, consisting in this, that in the Diets of the Empire he should hold the first place, as even now he holds. And so Lambert the Monk of Hersfeld, flourishing one century after the institution of Magdeburg, at the year 1073, beyond which only for four years he wove his History, openly acknowledges the Primacy of the See of Mainz, on account of which to its Archbishop the authority of electing and consecrating the King was assigned: and Conrad, in the Premonstratensian Order Abbot of Ursperg, who died in the year 1240, up to the year 1121 and beyond. at the year 1121; The Prelate, he says, Adalbert… holding the Primacy in the Cisalpine parts in manifold ways, for the defense of the Metropolis of all Germany, namely Mainz, kindled the minds of all, professing Catholic obedience.

[67] Thus far therefore both to the one of Trier and to the one of Mainz their Primacy stood unimpaired, to this in Upper, to that in Lower Germany: although neither is found in his diplomas ever to have used another title than that of Archbishop: because their Primacy in truth gave them no right or power over the other Archbishops, but only the presidency in Synodal gatherings and Imperial diets, as these happened to be celebrated in this or that diocese: for so it is fitting it be limited, lest one seem to oppose the other. To Hermann of Cologne about the year 1049 the same Leo IX wrote, in Malinkrot page 197. As we subject none of the Archbishops to you, so we decree you to be under no Primate. But the Archbishop of Hamburg, who is also often called the one of Bremen, The one of Hamburg, wished to be called Patriarch, on account of this Bishopric united to the Archbishopric from the year 846, as at the Acts of St. Anschar on the 3rd of February Henschen taught, so never yielded to the one of Magdeburg, that at the same time, in which Leo declared the one of Cologne subject to no Primate, Albert, then the most powerful of all the Northern Prelates, after the privileges of his Church had been confirmed by the same Pontiff (in which probably it was dealt with him as with the one of Cologne), as if it were too little to be subject to no Primate, did not indeed wish himself to be called Primate; but aspiring to an ampler title (by the testimony of Adam of Bremen the Canon, writing about the year 1080) wished to be called Patriarch of Hamburg, and at Hamburg openly labored to institute a Patriarchate. The History of the Archbishops of Bremen, carried up to the year 1395, more distinctly explains it in this manner: He ordained at Oldenburg, Eizo the Monk; in respect of the whole North. John the Scot he constituted at Magnopolis; a certain Aristo, coming from Jerusalem, he destined to Ratzeburg: and so the Church of Oldenburg was divided into three Bishoprics. Which indeed was by no means done by Imperial authority, but by the device of Albert the Archbishop. For he, a magnificent man and most powerful in the kingdom, since he had the Pope and the Emperor favorable, and in all things consenting to his will, in all the Boreal kingdoms, of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, discharged the Archiepiscopal authority and the ministry of the Apostolic Legation. Nor content with these, he wished to attain the honor of a Patriarchate, and disposed to establish twelve Bishoprics within the bounds of his parish. But there were subject to him the peoples of the Nordalbingian and Obotrite Slavs, so that not even all the Slavs pertained to the care of the Archbishop of Magdeburg, although chiefly for their sake instituted.

[68] Nor in less power than Albert of Hamburg toward the North, did Frederick of Salzburg rejoice toward the South: to whom and his successors, a like liberty enjoyed the one of Salzburg Benedict VI grants the Apostolic delegacy in the whole province of Noricum, and in all Pannonia, namely Upper and Lower, as his predecessors had it; so namely that it be permitted to none in the aforesaid provinces to usurp to himself the Pallium, nor to ordain Bishops, nor to exercise any Office, which ought to pertain to an Archbishop. But this, what else was it, than to declare him subject to no Primate? But because this was done in the same year, in which Adelbert of Magdeburg received his newly instituted Archbishopric; and because the Bishopric of Salzburg, constituted in the age of Charlemagne in Bavaria, is much more ancient; therefore I judge, that then the same one of Salzburg began with the one of Magdeburg to contend concerning the prerogative of place. For if to this diocese there was no boundary once constituted toward the East (which however it soon received, the Poles having obtained their own Archbishop, and Wunger, who had been unwilling to be subject to it, either of his own accord abdicating or dying) yet farther through both banks of the Danube, even into Bulgaria and Slavonia, the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Salzburg extended itself, embracing so many ancient dioceses of old Pannonia and Illyricum, not yet indeed to the Christian

Religion restored, but begun to be restored.

[69] Furthermore as Benedict VI, donating the Pallium to the Archbishop of Salzburg, declared him to enjoy the fullest right, which his predecessors had enjoyed, owing nothing to any Primate in Germany, before the devastation of their dioceses by the barbarians; so also Benedict VII, the successor of the former, and the one of Lorch, constituted the Archbishop of Lorch, Pilgrim, for the bringing forth of nations fruitful to God, from the new cultivators of the faith of the Hungarians and Moravians, or also of many other provinces of the Slavs neighboring his parish, Bishops being there ordained, according to as they were anciently disposed, Archbishop… the same holy Church of Lorch and its Rectors, now Archbishops, from all subjection and lordship of the Church of Salzburg and its Prelates absolving, after the bounds of each diocese were defined. and exalting with the Metropolitan honor: and as in modern times (namely about 1050) Agapitus the Pope of holy memory distinguished the boundaries of the same Provinces from each other, so we too define, he says, in such wise that the holy Church of Salzburg have the Bishops of Upper Pannonia as Suffragans, over whom up to now its Pontiffs were seen to preside… but the holy Church of Lorch in the Regions of Lower Pannonia and Moesia, whose provinces are Bavaria and Moravia, in which the parishes of seven Bishops in ancient times were contained. Under these when you hear also the Slavs named; know, that they were brought thither from the eastern bank of the Elbe by Charlemagne into East Francia, as the Chronicles speak, extending that name across the Danube as widely as the Empire of Charles extended, through the present Moravia and Slavonia: yet not all of them, but many more still left across the Elbe, in converting whom Otto usefully labored. But what those two Benedicts conferred on the Archbishops of Salzburg and Lorch; they are to be believed to have conferred on the Metropolitans instituted a little after, the one of Prague among the Bohemians, and the one of Riga among the Livonians.

[70] Now, as it is certain from the aforesaid, that the title of Primate belonged to the one of Magdeburg already for four hundred years and more; Meanwhile the one of Trier and the one of Mainz seem, so evidently I believe it demonstrated, that it was none, for the first two centuries from the institution of the Archbishopric; nor can it be, that genuine documents of an earlier right ever existed. But shall we therefore answer nothing to Krantz asking, whence, and in what the one of Magdeburg holds the Primacy? There are lacking, I confess, monuments, by which I might certainly define it. Yet to one surveying all things a not insipid conjecture occurs, from the time in which the Election of the Roman Emperor, before common to all the Princes of the Empire, was restricted to seven Greater Princes, now called Electors. Albert, Abbot of Stade and afterward a Minorite, the Seven-man rule of the Electors being constituted about the year 1240, in the Chronicle which he wove up to the year 1256, probably the last of his life; at the very year 1240 in which he left the Abbey, notes; that by the pre-designation of the Princes and consent, the Trier, the Mainz, and the Cologne ones elect the Emperor… the Palatine… the Duke of Saxony… the Markgrave of Brandenburg… the King of Bohemia: and it is very probable that that pre-designation or decree was then formed when, for Frederick II excommunicated, Gregory IX had admonished the Princes to substitute another Emperor.

[71] Those who defer this to the times of Gregory X and the Council of Lyons, since up to then the Election had pertained to all the Princes together when Rudolf of Habsburg was elected, are easily proven to have erred; nor less those, who ascribe to Gregory V the institution of the Seven-man Electorate. For as at the 1st year of this Pontiff, of Christ 996 number 56, Baronius observed: No one will be able rightly to deny, that after the death of the third Otto, for two hundred years and more, as many as were elected Kings of the Romans, designated Emperors, the same, not of seven Electors only, but of all the German Princes, who had assembled at the Diets, and among the Electors in the year 1200 the one of Magdeburg was first; were elected to the royal summit by their suffrages. The writer of the Annals proceeds further to confirm this, by authentic documents of letters, both Pontifical and Imperial and Electoral: of which to our purpose chiefly make those given in the year 1200 by both parts of the Princes, discordant in the election. There was absent then in Hungary, nor did he thence return alive, Sigfrid of Mainz, who died in that very year. And so on the part of Otto the first to subscribe is the one of Cologne, then two Bishops, three Abbots, one Duke and one Count: on the part of Philip all the rest, of whose column leading the Archbishop of Magdeburg, after himself has signing the Trier and Besançon Archbishops.

[72] Nor would you say, that in the time in which Albert of Stade wrote, those seven whom he himself names were not yet defined, and notwithstanding a different designation by Innocent IV, and so that this is the interpolation of another writer; because in the first Council of Lyons of the year 1245, by which Frederick was deposed, the Electors are named the Dukes of Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, Brabant; the Archbishops, of Cologne, Mainz, Salzburg. For this designation of Innocent IV, noted by Matthew Paris, and from him in Baronius, in which the one of Trier, with the Palatine, the Brandenburg, and the Bohemian are omitted (perhaps because, more obstinately adhering to Frederick, they were believed not about to proceed to a new Election), was not received, in the election of Henry 7 the same 3 Archbishops presided. either as to place or as to persons, but (as says the Anonymous, here nearly ending and probably contemporary, whose Chronicle Albert of Strasbourg in the 14th century continued) the Princes of Germany, namely the Archbishop of Mainz, of Cologne and of Trier, with the other Bishops of Strasbourg, of Speyer, and others (with whom there met also the Laymen, the same who before were pre-designated in Stade, lest from the right once acquired they should fall) elected at Würzburg Henry Landgrave of Thuringia as King. But, as appears, those seven did not yet so alone elect the King, that others also should altogether cease to assemble; if not their vote, at least their presence about to contribute to the election, and about to confirm the Elect. Meanwhile the very, such as it is, designation of the Seven-man rule, made in the aforesaid Council of Lyons, seems to confirm what I intended, that already then the sevenfold number had been defined.

[73] However these things may have been, concerning which Christopher Gewold filled a whole book in the year 1616; it remains certain, that altogether then, nor long before, this was done. But the one of Magdeburg, Willebrand Count of Kirberg, brother of Albert his mediate predecessor, a man so powerful, that he mulcted Otto Margrave of Brandenburg, conquered in battle and captured, of 1600 marks of silver, by the testimony of Strevesdorff; and who held his See from the year 1236 to 51; the one of Magdeburg being excluded thence Albert, I say, that one, can be seen to have complained in the general Diets, that he, whom Otto the Institutor of his Archbishopric willed to be exalted with special honor; and whose predecessor and first Archbishop Adelbert Benedict VII, and probably others after him more, had saluted as third among the Bishops; to whose nearest predecessor Ludolf even the one of Trier himself had lately (as we saw) yielded the primacy, although ordained four years before him; now at once both to the one of Trier and to the one of Cologne to be postponed; and to be excluded from the number of the Electors, he who believed himself to have equal right to that grade, if not even more than some.

[74] But if Theodoric II of Trier, or his Nephew Arnold, and Sigfrid de Eppenstein the Younger of Mainz, content now with the better title of Elector, yielded for pacifying the one of Magdeburg the title of Primate of Germany, by force of which he should sit next after the Electors in the Diets, we shall have both the time and the occasion, by which a Title of this kind accrued to the people of Magdeburg, troublesome to no one except the one of Salzburg. to be thenceforth used. As to the prerogative of sitting, however, the one of Salzburg contradicted; and probably also the one of Hamburg, whose Archbishopric, older than the one of Magdeburg by a century and a half, had been instituted in the year 826, and in the twentieth year after augmented by the Bremen Bishopric united to it: yet no account of this contradiction was had, on account of the consent of the other Princes to that compensation. But to the rest of the younger Archbishops the same would be by no means grievous, since a title void of jurisdiction otherwise belonging was odious to none; and therefore they did not much care to investigate, in what manner he, who numbered only six Suffragan Bishops in Eastern Saxony and old Slavonia (as Adam of Bremen calls it), could truly be called Primate of Germany. If anyone can teach something more certain, I will gladly follow.

COROLLARY II.

On the Church and Abbey of St. Michael of Antwerp, undertaken by St. Norbert, and to this day most flourishing.

Norbert, Founder of the Premonstratensian Order, and Archbishop of Magdeburg (St.)

BY D. P.

Why this subject is here added, It was not permitted to the writer of the Norbertine Life to run out to the several places undertaken or erected by his holy Founder; yet he thought it not to be passed over by him, why he was called to undertake the Church of Antwerp; and believed the whole Chapter XXXVI of his lucubration well expended on it. But we have made it even longer, by a prolix digression concerning Tanchelm or Tanchelin the heretic, by whom the tares sown, and after the death of the wicked sower luxuriating with impunity, the Saint, asked to pluck out from the Lord's field, led thither a colony of his own. Enough this for the Norbertine History: but it is not enough for my own obligation toward the same Church and its Abbots, or for my piety toward my fatherland. About to obey both affections, I had begun a regular Treatise, on our origins and antiquities, to be appended as a Corollary to the Norbertine Acts, or rather to the first Volume of June. But while I consult friends, from a treatise on the Antwerp Origins? whom I believed to be able to do something in it; I found some who, by occasion of administering the commonwealth, by turning over secret writings of every kind, had sought out for themselves a by no means contemptible abundance of curious notices; and that so great, that for arranging them aptly time did not allow this Volume hastening to go into the light. Therefore for finishing the work I took a respite; and the things which I had already arranged, concerning the Norbertine Abbey of St. Michael among us, I have here referred all. More, whoever will, has the sacred Chorography of the monastery of St. Michael, or (as in the course at the several leaves is written) the Cenobiography of St. Michael of Antwerp, published in the year 1660 at Brussels by Philip Vleugaert, under the name of Antonius Sanderus, together with several similar Treatises submitted to it, for illustrating each of the chief Abbeys and monasteries of our Brabant, and making a regular volume: which Chorography I profess to have used not illiberally: but what besides I have here performed the matter itself will declare.

§. I. The Translation of the Church of St. Michael to the Premonstratensians.

[2] There exist concerning the aforetitled subject diplomas, both of Hildolf the Provost of Antwerp, and of Burchard Bishop of Cambrai, in Aubert le Mire, in the Codex of pious Donations page 247 and following, both marked the year 1124, Indiction 2, Epact 3. Of the former this is the tenor: In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. I Hildolf, Provost of St. Michael in Antwerp, both to the future and to the present, in perpetuity. In what manner the aforesaid our church passed to the uses of the Canons of the Premonstratensian Order, and for what cause the assent of our Chapter was given to them, by the attestation of the present writing we make known.

When in our days a certain one, Tanchelin by name,

had come into our parts; Hildolf the Provost attests how he and his men and by venomous speech had turned away very many from the Faith and from the Sacraments of the Church; for this cause, that that heresy, which had occupied our province, might be utterly extinguished, by the counsel of Lord Burchard the Bishop, and of all the People, and the assent of our Chapter, we took care that Lord Norbert, a man of religion notable in our times, should be summoned; and to him and his Brothers, keeping the Rule of Blessed Augustine, and following his institution, we handed over the aforesaid church, with the chapels founded in its cemetery, yielded the church of St. Michael to the Norbertines, and three courtyards and an acre of land adjacent to the same cemetery, with four Prebends, through the hands of the said Bishop; vigilant in circumspection and worthily weighing, that we should be fattened by their prayers and spiritual goods, if we should sustain them by temporal benefits. But we, before twelve in number, limited our number to eight Prebends; and with these and the integrity of our Provostship, we transferred ourselves to the church of Blessed Mary in the same town; but the other four Prebends, sharing in all things similarly with them, we gave at our own discretion; with 4 Prebends: except that the allods and serfs, which up to these times that church had possessed, we segregated singularly for our own uses.

[3] But the Baptism of the most celebrated time, namely of Easter and Pentecost, shall be observed in that church, and by sharing of their ministries but for the rest of the time our Parishioner shall provide for those to be baptized. But to visit the sick and communicate them and anoint them with oil, to hear confessions, to bury the dead, all these we freely grant to them to all who seek these from them. But that so illustrious a covenant of beneficence may always remain inviolate between us and them, this has been defined, that whatever gift a sick and dying Parishioner, either in land or in other substance, shall have offered to any church, or shall have appointed to be offered for himself; let it be divided in half. But what an Alien, sound or sick, or a healthy Parishioner, shall have given; let the church, to which this shall have been given, possess without partition. But these churches themselves shall owe to one another continual prayers of fraternal charity, and by sharing of oblations. in all necessities supporting each other. But for the commemoration of their liberty, each church shall pay to the Prelate of Cambrai a golden coin of Antwerp money and weight, in single years on the feast of St. Luke. But that these may remain ratified and unshaken, by the impression of our seal and the subscription of the witnesses, who were present and gave this gift, we have taken care to have them noted.

I Hildolf, Provost of St. Mary; namely the former Title being changed, by the very delivery of this instrument. Anselm Canon, Bernard Canon. Giselbert Boreas. Raduard Canon. Ovo Canon. Raduard Scribe. Roger Canon. Hilduin Parishioner. The same, probably, of whom in the Life of St. Norbert it is read, that one Priest had the care of ruling the whole people; but on account of the too great multitude and frequent negligence, he could not; nor was he trusted; because he too, as in marriage and carnal union, had manifestly made his niece in the third line the partner of his crime. Happy, if at the preaching of St. Norbert, the baseness of his former life being laid aside, he redeemed his sins.

[4] In almost the same tenor proceeds the confirmation of the Acts, signed by the authority of Burchard, The deed Burchard by a double diploma as having the higher spiritual right in the thing donated. But the Confirmation was conceived and written under a double, although not much dissimilar in those things which concern the translation of the church, tenor; of which one was given to the Canon Donors, the other to the Donees. The former, faithfully drawn from the archives of the Cathedral church of Antwerp, published Le Mire in the Codex of pious Donations, chapter 78, and Baronius at the year 1124. The latter exists in the Chorography of the monastery, drawn from its archive. The former thus begins: In the name of the Father and the Son, who is Truth; and the Holy Spirit, who is the Charity of both. of which the first the first foundation of St. Michael, Burchard, by divine mercy Bishop of Cambrai, both to the future and to the present, in perpetuity. It is of Pontifical solicitude and compensative dispensation, the things well done by us or by others, when it shall be opportune, to promote higher, and the things promoted, that they may remain firm, to consolidate by a firm sanction. Therefore the Church of Antwerp, in what manner we have donated it with liberty to the uses of twelve Canons, and afterward by divine inspiration sublimated to a higher state, by the attestation of the present page we make known. Indeed the privilege of the former foundation and liberty is of this kind: Since in Ecclesiastes it is written etc., which may be seen in Le Mire in the place cited. Then almost word for word he inserts the Diploma, related by us above, by which the Provost and Canons transfer the church of St. Michael to the Premonstratensians, themselves migrating to St. Mary's; with almost this one difference, probably arisen from the carelessness of the copyists, that here not all the ministries are enumerated, which there, continues into the translation and the ministries to be common to both churches in the future: which themselves may be seen above at number 3. But also in these very ministries (to note it in a word) time afterward changed some things, usage and agreement intervening. This however persists to this day, besides other things known to all, that as often as a Canon of either Church dies, to the Church in which the funeral is celebrated the other Congregation should proceed collegially; and one on this side, the other on that, sitting in the same Choir, should commonly sing the Vigils of the dead, and the next day the Mass of Requiem. And so the Churches themselves, as the Diploma of donation requires, render to one another continual prayers of fraternal charity.

[5] I return to the tenor of the Burchardian Confirmation, which when it had donated each Church with entire and equal liberty; and had sanctioned the Churches themselves, all exaction toward one another being excluded, to owe to each other continual prayers of fraternal charity, in all necessities supporting one another… thus is concluded: Whatever therefore by the largesse of Pontiffs or Princes, nay by the conferring of any Catholics, subscribed by the Cambrai Clergy alone: have been offered to the said Churches or shall further be conferred, by the protection of this our decree, we assign to the same for the uses (as said) of the canons. But lest any canonical or secular person in the course of times be moved against this page of our decree by a spirit of calumny, peace being conferred on the conservators, against the invaders, until they shall come to their senses, we promulgate the destruction of anathema, and confirm by our sealing and canonical attestation. There follows therefore the seal of the Bishop, not likewise a manual subscription, but for the Bishop they affix the sign of his hand, who from the Cambrai Clergy were present, in this tenor: The sign of Urlebald the Provost, The sign of John the Archdeacon, The sign of Radulf the Archdeacon, The sign of Anselm the Archdeacon. The sign of Anselm the Provost, The sign of Wido, The sign of Robert, The sign of Gerard the Chaplain, The sign of Oilard the Dean, The sign of Hugo, The sign of Heribert, of the Canons.

[6] the other given to the Premonstratensians similar to the first Thus far the tenor of the instrument, left to the Canon Donors. Of the other, delivered to the Donees, the tenor returns to the same; except that the exordium is briefer, under these terms, In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Burchard etc., and that presently the Diploma making mention of the Premonstratensians, in place of these words (Therefore the Church of Antwerp, in what manner we have donated it with liberty to the uses of twelve Canons) substitutes; a few things being necessarily changed; Wherefore the Church of St. Michael in Antwerp, in what manner we have donated it with liberty to the uses of the Canons of the Premonstratensian Order,… by the attestation of the present page we make known. There is omitted then here, the whole text of the first institution of the 12 Canons with their Provost, inserted in those. Finally the names of the subscribers are not all the same in both. For here, Wido and Robert being omitted, the formula is thus closed; The sign of John, The sign of Radulf the Archdeacon, The sign of Anselm the Provost, assuredly different from the aforesaid Archdeacon and Provost of the same name. For as from the very subscriptions it is given to gather, in the retinue of the Bishop, staying at Antwerp in the year 1124 (where he both composed the aforesaid Diplomas of Confirmation and consecrated the church), there were present several illustrious men, subscribing besides the Cambrai Clergy several Archdeacons, several Provosts, even called by the same name. To this second diploma, Witnesses are also the Canons of St. Mary, Hildolf the Provost, Anselm Canon, Hildewin Parishioner, Giselbert Porcus, Bernard Canon, Ovo Canon, Rager, Lambert of Ghent. also the Antwerp one, But this was done, in the year of the incarnate Word 1124, Indiction 2, Epact 3, in the 9th of the Prelacy of Lord Burchard. I Werenbald the Chancellor wrote and revised.

[7] Two things from these I note. The one, that the witnesses Canons of St. Mary here are all the same, from which already then some had passed to the Premonstratensians. who above subscribed the Diploma of their own donation, except the two Raduards, in whose place succeeded Lambert of Ghent. But as from this, that to the Diploma of donation after the Provost only eight Canons subscribe, not ineptly gathers Goropius Becanus, and from him Polycarp; that the other four had already before joined themselves to the Premonstratensians, and thereby it was the easier for those eight, to transcribe to Norbert the Prebends of these four: so it could come about that, following the examples of the fewer, presently the two Raduards likewise joined themselves to the Premonstratensians, before this Confirmation, somewhat later at least than the preceding Donation, was composed, Lambert having now obtained the Prebend of one of them, and therefore himself too subscribing here. The other thing, which I note, is: that the Date of each Episcopal diploma is altogether the same: nor from it differs the diploma of donation as to the year, Indiction, and Epact. Yet it is to be grieved that no day is ascribed, by which it could be more distinctly known, how much space intervened between the writings of the diplomas.

[8] Burchard lived (whose Acts we have hitherto elucidated, as far as they concern both Churches) not only up to the year 1130, Burchard still living in the year 1133, and bearing himself as Bishop, when his death is set by Dodechin, or whoever else continued the Chronicle of Marianus Scotus up to the end of the 12th century; but to three years beyond or more. For Le Mire in the Codex of pious Donations page 282 exhibits his diploma, by which he donates with liberty the Church of Tongerlo, at the petition of Waltmann Abbot of Antwerp, and Bernard of Clairvaux, that in it the Brothers of the Premonstratensian Order may freely and quietly serve God… in the year 1133, Conrad ever Augustus reigning. This Conrad was the nephew on the daughter's side of Henry V, opposed by some, Lothair being raised to the place of Henry, in the year 1125. and Peter being substituted for him, Lietard is subrogated in the year 1131 If therefore Burchard adhered to Conrad, excommunicated by Honorius II; it would be no wonder, that Lothair obtained from the same Honorius his deposition, and the substitution of a certain Peter, in a certain charter of Baldwin of Flanders subscribed with the title of Bishop of Cambrai, in the year 1129 in the Sammarthani; and that to him being dead, the same Lothair took care, by the authority of Innocent II, to substitute his Chaplain Lietard, consecrated in the year 1131, and received at Cambrai as such. But it is probable that for this cause some dissension existed at Antwerp; Waltmann the Abbot with his men, and St. Bernard himself, although otherwise most zealous of Innocent against Anacletus the Antipope, not approving

the institution of Lietard, in place of Burchard still living and not canonically condemned. But he being dead, the whole suit seems lulled, and confirms his acts in 1135: and all alike acquiesced in Lietard: wherefore also to him our people of Antwerp had recourse in the year 1135, to confirm the acts of Burchard, lest perchance the deposition of the author should hinder their validity. And so he, being asked, first confirms by the testimony of his authority the translation of the Chapter made from one Church to the other, by his predecessor Burchard the Bishop, with the favor, nay at the petition, of the Provost and Brothers of the same Church; then, the manner and cause being narrated for which the Premonstratensians had been placed at St. Michael's, ratifies certain pacts between both, to be more conveniently expounded below.

[9] But behold again new troubles in the Bishopric. Lietard, on account of a reprobate life, is cast from his See, by the same Innocent by whom he had been received; Lothair deprecating nothing, Nicholas substituted for him: to whom probably he too had begun to be hateful; and in his place is subrogated Nicholas. But he sitting, there began among the Canons of both Churches to sprout up certain new seeds of dissensions, probably from this head, that whereas in Burchard's diploma express mention is made of four Prebends, transcribed to the Premonstratensians; here by Lietard it is simply written, that the transition to St. Mary's was made, with the integrity of the Provostship and benefices, the peace somewhat disturbed namely with the estates or serfs which up to these times that Church had possessed, and also with all appendages, namely the chapel of St. Walpurga, which is in the same Burg, and the chapel of Ortheren, Berendrecht, Lillo, Zantvliet, and all the Tithes which are contained within the circuit of the aforesaid parish. But chiefly to stir up suits made these words, concerning the Canons, once of St. Michael's, then of St. Mary's, In whose disposition… the whole Parish of Antwerp depended, and depends; which seemed to subject the Premonstratensians too to the disposition of the people of St. Mary, against what Burchard's institution bore.

[10] It was gone therefore to Nicholas, who, about to confirm the peace, now begun to be shaken, in the 12th year of his Prelacy, of the incarnate Word 1148, Having, he says, in the year 1148 repairs it. the Apostle in our midst, since we are moved by the solicitude of our office to pursue and exhort to peace, that ecclesiastical devotion, under the benefit of peace, by the progress of tranquillity may be increased; we have agreed upon a peace between the Canons of St. Mary the Mother of God, and the Canons of St. Michael of Antwerp of the Premonstratensian Order. For when by Lord Burchard, of good memory our predecessor, the Church of St. Michael under a Provost and twelve Canons had been ordained; Norbert, a man of good estimation, the first institutor of the Premonstratensian Order according to the Rule of Blessed Augustine, narrating the things done under Burchard, driven by the Spirit of the Lord, came into the Burg of Antwerp; and led many sunk in the gulf of infidelity, by the net of the word of God, to the shores of sound faith; and certain executors of the Religion ordained by him, by the choice of the Canons and the assent of all the people, the aforesaid Bishop ordaining, he placed in the church of St. Michael. The same Bishop therefore disposing, the Canons, whose up to that time the same Church had been; to another Church, founded in honor of Blessed Mary, with the integrity of their Provostship and twelve Prebends now there serving God, transferred themselves: granting to the same indeed the same power had in their parish, namely of baptizing at Easter and Pentecost, also of visiting the sick and anointing with sacred Oil and burying the dead, freely without contradiction etc. But not even here, you will say, is any mention made of the Prebends ceded, and altogether twelve are named. as if again 12 were at St. Mary's, To this objection I answer, that mention of the cession was not necessary, expressly enough noted by Burchard, as also of certain conditions with which it had been bound: but that the Canons are not said to have passed to the church of St. Mary with twelve Prebends, but with twelve to serve God in the same Church: because namely, not long after the aforesaid cession, they had supplied their former number to themselves, either by a new partition of the revenues, or by a certain more convenient, but to be elsewhere more opportunely explained, reason.

* i.e. sign

§. II. The Fraternity confirmed, between the Marian Canons and the Michaelites.

[11] Although from the aforementioned constitution of Burchard it came about, that each College, all exaction toward one another being excluded, The prerogative of natural order remaining with the Marians, seemed to subsist with equal right on both sides, and the parish of Antwerp was reckoned bipartite (for this indicate Parishioner and Alien, distinguished between themselves, there where it is treated of the burials of each part), yet there remained some prerogative of order, at least natural, with the Canons of Blessed Mary; whom with a ready and full affection of gratitude, says Polycarp, in the Notes on the Life of St. Norbert page 402, and that according to the mind of their Abbot Norbert and all the Brothers then, we acknowledge to be our first Founders, and as such we hold and venerate. But that of this it might more appear, Lietard in the aforesaid diploma, which he gave in the year 1135, Indiction 11 (rather 13), after the foundation of the former Canons in the church of St. Michael narrated, the Fraternity with the Premonstratensians is confirmed in the year 1135, thus proceeds: The Brothers of the oft-said Church of St. Mary, from whose disposition, with the dignity and tenor of the former liberty, the whole parish of Antwerp depended and depends, called to themselves the Brothers, who serve in the Church of Blessed Michael under the Rule of St. Augustine, that the burden committed to them they might bear with them on the shoulder of mutual Fraternity, through Lord Norbert, a man of supreme religion and of the profession of the same life; and yielding to them the aforesaid Church of St. Michael free, to that in which they now serve, the Church of the glorious Mother of God Mary… transferred. But that them, bearing with them the weight of the day and the heat, also with extension to the Sisters they might cherish with the consolations of the benefits granted to them; the oblations of the Nativity day of Christ, and of the Purification of Blessed Mary (except the candles which on the same day are there offered), of Easter also or the Ascension, of Pentecost or of All Saints, and also of the Commemoration of all Souls, being kept for their own uses; the rest they granted to the Brothers of St. Michael and to the Sisters of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene (under the same tenor of condition) for all time; communicating mutual prayer to one another; and preserving in perpetuity the Fraternity, and in all necessities the charitable support of helping.

[12] and again in the year 1148, the oblations of certain days being saved, And this is the first mention of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene; to which Nicholas, likewise Bishop of Cambrai, in the year 1148 adds the Chapels of St. Peter and St. Martin, establishing that the oblations, both in the aforesaid Chapels and in the Church of the Sisters to be made, should fall to the part of the Brothers of St. Michael, except the oblations of Masses for deceased Parishioners of St. Mary. But as for the sake of peace concerning these it was thus agreed between both Colleges; so also under the same Lietard, the same desiring to keep and leave to themselves and their successors the unity of peace; because license of burying in either cemetery is granted; it was established, that whatever sick man of the Parishioners of Antwerp desires to serve under the Rule of the said Brothers of St. Michael, let him receive license from the Parish Priest of St. Mary without contradiction: and if living he shall have entered to them, their Habit being received, the oblations of the funeral obsequies, and the right of burial and extreme unction being restricted. let the Brothers of St. Michael to whom he passed have: but if not, as concerning other Parishioners, let them return to the Brothers of St. Mary. To communicate also the sick and anoint with Oil, except those who are found in the Habit of their life, shall not be permitted to the Brothers of St. Michael. Here is restricted the faculty, which the Canon Donors and Bishop Burchard had granted most amply: and the same again Nicholas amplifies, granting free power of anointing anyone with sacred Oil, yet under this condition, that the Parish Priest be informed of the anointing of the sick; lest perchance the excommunicated, he being ignorant, be anointed; and that he himself (if he wish) be present. But this condition, as fruitful of suits, so full of troubles, seems to have been the cause, why the ministry of anointing as well as of baptizing, which Burchard himself had restricted to a few solemnities, was at last wholly relinquished by the Michaelites. I think also that the aforesaid restrictions only concern the Parishioners of St. Mary, who needed to be found in the Habit of the Order, that they might be buried at St. Michael's and provided for by the Premonstratensians, inasmuch as otherwise strangers to the Michaelite Parish: to which in turn it was granted, that whomever, wishing to be buried with them, they could receive from anywhere.

[13] After these things Pope Eugenius III, about the year 1150, The privilege of Eugenius III for the church of St. Michael and its rights asked by Emmelin the second Abbot, to take the place under his and Blessed Peter's protection, does it; confirming to the same Emmelin and his Brothers all the power granted them in the Parish of Antwerp by the Canons of St. Mary; and possessions both present and future; of the present expressing certain chief ones by their proper names, namely, Santvliet, the land of Orderren, the court which is called Parke, the court Ossele, the court Haga, the court Alterle, the court Marxblas, the fishery Huntemudem, with serfs, and pastures, and woods, and farmsteads. But Santvliet is, beyond Orderen, with mention of a certain revenue to be paid to the Marian Canons. by Lietard at number 9 Ortheren, situated at the same distance of a league and a half from Antwerp as this, a place now exceedingly well fortified against the incursions of the Dutch, holding nearby Bergen-op-Zoom, and distant only three leagues; and there the church of St. Mary Magdalene, overthrown by the injury of wars, Chrysostom van der Sterre the Abbot restored in the year 1648: where the other Courts are situated, when obtained, and whether all are possessed to this day, it concerns nothing to inquire, since probably several of them are from elsewhere than from the Canons of St. Mary; by whom meanwhile, in the same Bull of Eugenius, are said to be granted from four granges tithes, under an annual revenue of 12 sextarii of forensic measure, four of wheat, four of barley, and four of oats, all which and others in the same Privilege are praised as reasonably established; namely that Privilege, as I think, which the Marians made for the Premonstratensians for the four Prebends before ceded, that each might have their own things independently of the others. Nor ought the agreement of a revenue of 12 sextarii to be reckoned an infraction of the privilege given by Burchard, all exaction toward one another being excluded; as neither the stipulation of oblations to be ceded on certain days approved by Lietard; but a certain grateful recognition of a benefit received toward the most well-deserving Founders.

§. III. The limits of the old Parish of Antwerp, and their division between the Marian Canons and the Michaelites.

[14] The name of Burg, in the age of St. Norbert taken more broadly, Since we have seen Lietard the Bishop at number 9 write, concerning the first Canons instituted at St. Michael's by Godfrey, that from their disposition the whole Parish of Antwerp depended; and have taught that this afterward, they having passed to St. Mary's, was divided between the Marians and the Norbertines; it will be worth the effort to explain by what boundaries that parish was defined when Norbert

came. And first I advise, that the Bishops of Cambrai, in Le Mire in the Notitia of the churches of Belgium, place, as situated in the Burg of Antwerp, not only the chapel of St. Walpurga; there was comprised the whole city up to the river: but also the church of Blessed Mary, and the church of St. Michael, and so by the name of Burg call the whole Parish of Antwerp, both within and without the walls of that time, before that great augmentation of the year 1314, by which our place, twice as broad toward the Scheldt as deep, was almost seen to be squared toward the East.

[15] By the name of Burg therefore taken more strictly, know that there properly comes that modest mound of higher ground, on which now is the church of St. Walpurga, as far as it was inhabited in the year 1224, surrounded by the ditch called Burggracht; which alone stood out from the widely surrounding marsh, before, dikes being drawn toward the East and South, a way was opened from it, both to Quercelodora otherwise Turninum, today called Deuren; and to the Sandpit, commonly den Ouver, beyond which one went to the little church of St. Martin, consecrated (as is believed) by St. Amand. On that mound preached in the 7th century St. Eligius, when against the pagan rites with continual instance he fought at Antwerp; there, or (as it is otherwise said) below the castle of Antwerp upon the river Scheldt, or, at Antwerp, namely the old Burg known from the 7th century in the same century the same Bishop Amand constructed the holy church of Peter and Paul the Apostles, as attests Rohing an illustrious man, when he says, that he himself received it in exchange from the venerable man Firmin Abbot of the monastery of Quercolodora, and gave it to the Apostolic man Lord Willibrord the Bishop. Hence further you understand how the care of souls, which had been committed to the Abbot of Quercolodora, passed to the Abbey of Echternach founded by St. Willibrord, with the church of SS. Peter and Paul, and constituted heir of all things which here and elsewhere he had possessed. But it is credible, that in the age of those holy Bishops, there had begun to be inhabited no small space of the surrounding marsh, gradually dried up, and perhaps already then girt with wall and ditch. I say, Perhaps; because it is not sufficiently established that this was before the irruptions of the Northmen in the 9th century, nay it is probable that of fortifying that, so to speak, Subburg, and the town joined to it, there was no thinking, unless the disaster received from them, and a like one to be feared thenceforth from those about to return, had suggested that counsel.

[16] This therefore, and whatever besides of dwellings there was toward the East and South, according to those dikes which I have mentioned, was the whole Parish of Antwerp, when the aforesaid Northmen, having arrived about the year of Christ 882 (as Sigebert is author), devastated with fire and sword all the land of the Brabanters around the river Scheldt; and so even that very, whatever it then was, Antwerp; whence through the river Schinde they are said to have come to the village Turninum, and to have burned and utterly overthrown the monastery of Quercolodora or of St. Fredegand. The Northmen having departed, gradually those Burghers returned who had been able to escape the disaster; and they recognized that in the walls alone of their Burg, however strongest, there was not enough protection against those piratical incursions, and decreed that the Subburg also (the old charters name it Onder-borgt) should be more firmly fortified, and such St. Norbert found it, already then famous for the multitude of inhabitants, and opportune for the commerce of those sailing past; but destitute almost wholly of the care of fit Pastors. For the people of Echternach, to whom St. Willibrord had committed it, being far absent; and the people of Quercolodora, who could never afterward be restored, being slain or put to flight, and the dwellings extended farther along the river, I know not who took up the care of souls, before the Parish passed into the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Cambrai. Then Duke Godfrey of Bouillon, about to provide better for it, on the eve of his departure to the sacred expedition, built to Michael, the commander-in-chief of the Christian armies, near the old chapel of St. Martin, a church, to be at once Collegiate and Parochial: for now the whole tract along the bank of the Scheldt up to there had begun to be frequented with dwellings, and to be reckoned one Burg with the town itself. But why that Duke, so far from the old Burg, chose the place for founding a Canonry, no better reason offers itself, than that in the long-since restored Burg and town all things were narrow with inhabitants, nor suited for enlarging the spaces of cemetery and cloister and gardens; and religion's worship then languishing a little more, the Chapel of St. Walpurga sufficed, in the 12th century the church of St. Michael was erected, either restored or first founded after the departure of the Northmen, for the Sunday and festal assemblies, of those for whom it was not entire or pleasing to proceed all the way to St. Michael's.

[17] Meanwhile the Virgin Mother of God, who for the town, then still small, whose Canons migrating to the new St. Mary's, but gradually dilating to the greatest amplitude, was preparing her Patronage; and was destining to the new and most beloved Premonstratensian Order the Canonry of St. Michael; brought it about, that in the meadow next to the first walls of Antwerp, then turned into kitchen gardens, upon the stalk of one higher cabbage (so tradition bears) she caused her image to be found, from the event called op't stoxken. To this when on account of daily miracles a vast multitude of pilgrims flowed, and so also an abundance of oblations; first an extempore chapel, then also a church of just amplitude rose; and the whole circuit of that meadow began to be frequented by so many new inhabitants, that a new town seemed joined to the old, scarcely smaller than it, such as enclosed by the rampart extended to the south in the year, as our Chronographers say, 1202, and the ground-plan marks at number 3. Since therefore to both groups of Canons, having begun to dwell together at St. Michael's, they yielded it to the Norbertines, as we saw above, their place was narrow; and the opportunity of the new church near the walls of the old town with gardens about to suffice for an ample cemetery invited; the old Canons judged it fitting, to leave to the new guests the former place, and to transfer themselves to St. Mary's; whose church, although not yet enclosed by walls, it appeared would shortly be the center of the city daily extending itself to the South; whose suburbs when they also toward the North and East had extended themselves farther together with the walls, than that they could conveniently be administered by one Parish-priest of St. Mary; the Chapter was forced to divide its now too ample Parish, and to institute three new ones, St. Walpurga, St. James, and St. George, as was done in the year 1477.

[18] It remained, that as the Marian Canons in the 12th century had relinquished to the Premonstratensians the third part of their Prebends, with that part of their parish, which is now beyond the moat so also they should share with them the Parish hitherto single; which that it could not conveniently be administered by both in common, no long experience of many years was needed. But who would not easily persuade himself, that it was so agreed, that the same southern boundary should be of the Marian Parish, which is to this day? and according to which at the beginning of the 13th century it pleased to draw new walls and a ditch? That boundary takes its beginning from the new shipyard of St. John, commonly St. Jans-vliet; drawn in the year 1314, and according to the streets, afterward called of the Stonecutters, Lombards, and Litter-bearers, is carried round toward the old ditch, about to meet it there, where now the Tower of our Professed house stands. Therefore whatever is now reckoned under the Parish of St. Andrew, and then also pertained to the Burg of Antwerp, although not yet enclosed by walls, began to be called and was the Parish of St. Michael; until it pleased the Premonstratensians to lay down the Pastoral cares within the city, and to restore them to the Marian Canons, to be administered by a Parish-priest whom they should constitute at St. Andrew's, attributed to the new Parish of St. Andrew in the year 1529. which to have been done in the year 1529 the letters of Adrian VI in Scribanius teach; as we shall more fully teach in the proper treatise on Antwerp matters; where also we shall explain how the suburbs of the Michaelite Parish, extended beyond Kroneburg up to Kiel along the Scheldt, in the year 1563 received their own Parish church, there where the monastery of the Carthusians, a little before overthrown, had stood: but this too overthrown on occasion of the Spanish Citadel built by Alba, began again in our memory to be restored.

§. IV. On the Brothers or Tertiaries of the Michaelites, and their Nuns.

[19] What Rule and what Habit of the Premonstratensian Tertiaries? What was said in the foregoing Paragraph concerning the Rule and Habit of the Order, wont to be conferred even on Parishioners of St. Mary, wishing to be aggregated to the Premonstratensians, to be provided for by them unto death through the Sacraments, and to be buried with them; this anyone will easily judge to look to some kind of Confraternity, embracing lay faithful of either sex even married, such as are those, which the Mendicant Orders call Tertiaries. But Rules of this kind, as now their use has become obsolete, so their chapters have been given to oblivion. As to the Habit, Nicholas Camuzat in the Promptuary of Antiquities of Troyes page 363, treating of the Counts of Brienne, founders of the monastery of Basse-fontaine; when, he says, they observed strictly and accurately the Rule prescribed by Blessed Norbert, it became known to all, that not in vain did they wear a white garment: for the integrity and purity of pious and religious works aptly agreed and consented with their garment, which they were ordered to wear white. Pagi in his Library page 311, treating of Theobald Count of Champagne, asserts, that to him and others thus received was prescribed by the Saint a distinct and modest dress, and a short scapular of white wool, under the lay garments.

[20] That such was also in use among the people of Antwerp I persuade myself, but that that use was changed in the last century, little leaden coins succeeding in place of the scapular, of which very many, what coins, signed with the Eucharistic reliquary? exhibiting on the other face the reliquary of the most holy Sacrament, here among the cloisters by chance we dug up, says the Author of the Chorography page 8, and subjoins this type of them. I grieve indeed that none of them survives, whence I might describe the back face; perhaps even about to teach something, not yet observed. But the very omission of it persuades me, that there was nothing on the back which could be sculpted. Perhaps also there would be found a little loop or another indication of a ring, by means of which and probably a white ribbon, a sacred coin of this kind could be hung from the neck. Yet the form itself is by no means ancient, but later than the institution of the feast, which Clement IV in the year 1273 confirmed, and made common to the whole Christian world. For not before was it the custom to expose and carry round the sacred Host (as now is done) visible through glass, to be adored by the faithful. Perhaps also coins of this kind were first devised in the last century, when to the first takers-up of the name of Geux, taking up coins suited to the name hung from their caps, the Catholics opposed sacred metals, expressed with holier types, and the use of these Pius V commended, Indulgences also being added. But on such an occasion, whence rather should the Norbertine Sodalists take a token for themselves, than from the venerable Sacrament; mindful of the Eucharistic worship, vindicated by their holy Father; whence also for painting and fashioning his images they made it his proper token, and deservedly sang to him,

that which to this day under his statue at the city walls behind the Abbey we read, What Amand had begun, What Eligius had planted, Willibrord had watered, Tanchelin had devastated, Norbert restored.

[21] Nuns also, soon from its institution at Antwerp, The Nuns, who had been at Antwerp, as well as the other first monasteries of the Order, the church of St. Michael had, under that rigor of discipline which we described in the prefatory Commentary, among them even of a stricter than among the men. Of these the first mention occurs to us in the diploma of Bishop Lietard, signed under the date of the year 1135, as having a church within or beside the cemetery of the Michaelite church, under the title of St. Mary Magdalene: which church, together with the Chapels of SS. Peter and Martin, is named also in the bull of Nicholas his successor, about the year 1148, but without mention of the Sisters which is made in the first; whose monastery also was said to be Fossatum (perhaps because by an intervening ditch it was separated from the dwelling of the Brothers) the Lord Baron le Roy asserts in the Notitia of the Marquisate page 53, because he so found in several old Schedules of the Michaelite monastery itself, having long ago accurately searched the whole archive, with the good leave of the Abbot. Hence we gather, that those Sisters, soon after the decree of Hugo the General was brought in, were removed farther away. But whither? A probable enough conjecture is that they passed to a certain suburban place, removed into the suburban field, from their dwelling to this day called the Field of the Nuns, commonly Nonnevelt. One century after this, namely in the year 1246 Godfrey Lord of Breda conferred his Tithe of Santvliet to the convent of Blessed Michael at Antwerp in alms, as the aforesaid Baron page 384 teaches from the monuments of the monastery itself: he teaches likewise that in the year 1254 the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene was translated from Antwerp to the aforesaid Santvliet, with the consent of Peter the Cardinal Apostolic Legate. Why not for the cause of transferring thither the Nuns, who under that appellation had had a church at Antwerp?

[22] thence successively perhaps to Santvliet, If this was done, place is given for suspecting, that those are the same, who, by the testimony of the same Baron le Roy page 53, received their foundation near Wouw in the field of Bergen-op-Zoom, distant almost three leagues from Santvliet. The cause of repeating the migration is at hand, namely the inclemency of the sea air, which the Scheldt, driven back by the daily tide, breathes and blows upon Santvliet; whereas at Wouw, the same air is most pure and most healthful. to Wouw, That Monastery began to be built for poor Nuns, according to Baron le Roy page 456 by the noble Prince Lord Servatius de Lidekerke and his consort Ymmezoete in the year 1269: but in the following year the church was finished and consecrated: and another year after, the aforesaid place the Premonstratensian Abbot, in the universal Diet of the Order, the aforesaid Servatius de Lidekerke himself demanding that very thing by vow in the same Diet from the Fathers of the Order, wholly with the Virgins incorporated into the Premonstratensian Order, namely under the direction of the Abbot of St. Michael and the rule of the Nuns brought from Santvliet. For whence could they have been taken nearer? For the year then 1279 recites Christopher Butkens, in the Trophies of Brabant page 219, from the Bergen archives a fragment of an instrument, given in that year, on the nativity of Blessed Mary the Virgin; by which Arnold of Louvain Lord of Breda and Elizabeth his wife, Lady of the same land… endow and benefit the Provost and Convent of the nuns of the Valley of St. Catharine near Wouw. Yet not long was it permitted to the Nuns to subsist there; because, to Breda; as we have from the Brabantia Mariana of Wigman book 3 chapter 44, in the year 1288, the dikes near Lillo being broken, the whole land round about was overwhelmed by a flood of waters: and pitying them Raso de Gavere, Lord of Lidekerke and Breda, with Aleyde his wife, called the same to Breda, and in the year 1295 placed them in a Hospital, to minister to the poor and sick.

[23] Then leaving the Hospital, out of desire of their former and quieter life, they received a more opportune place there, where there could have accrued to them the Zealand ones the old name of the Valley of St. Catharine being renewed, and held it under a Provost received from Antwerp, up to the year 1637. Meanwhile it becomes probable to me, that there were joined to them the remnants of the Virgins, brought to Antwerp from the monastery of Vallis-dulcis, which on the island of Walcheren in Zealand they had long had, then occupied by the heretics. For these Le Mire attests to be staying with us, when he wrote; but now: what has become of them, is unknown. But their monastery was sprung from the Antwerp one, by the same testimony; so that these are perhaps those, whom we seek as led away from St. Magdalene's, nor can we for certain affirm that they were brought to Santvliet, because there is there no memory of any nunnery. However it is, Breda being reduced also into the power of the Confederates, the Premonstratensian Virgins who were there, after long troubles for the cause of religion equably borne, and likewise with them to Oosterhout by the counsel of their Provost betook themselves to Oosterhout, in the year which I have said 1637; because the liberty of the Catholic rite still flourished there, and the place was near the town. And when for every event thereafter they had obtained for themselves a refuge at Antwerp in the year 1644; it seemed it would be more conducive, if that were converted into a monastery independent of the monastery of Oosterhout, which in what manner in the year 1654 was done is fully described in the last chapter of the aforepraised Chorography. Thus, if our former conjectures hold, after various migrations through five centuries, led to Antwerp. the Norbertine Nuns will have returned to the same city, whence they first went out; although not to the same place, but one more remote from the monastery, as the decree of Hugo required; and they take daily an excellent increase under the title of the venerable Sacrament, and are ruled by a Provost constituted for them by the Abbot of St. Michael, yet dwelling not among them, but among the Monks.

§. V. The Topography of the Church and Monastery, old and new, declared by images.

[24] The present prospect of the place from the East and South is exhibited To proceed from the better-known to the less known, and to send before the conclusions, to be drawn partly from probable reasoning, partly from conjecture, the things which are held by hands and eyes, nature teaches, and experience proves. And so before all I exhibit the prospect of the place, the eastern, such as it offers itself today from the side of the public way, which having its name from the thing, commonly de Klooster-straet, that is the Way of the monastery par excellence is called. Know however that the series of those buildings, which are noted along the way as new and let out for the uses of citizens, although designed whole at once by the architect, is yet not perfected; but here and there only four new ones stand; and with the rest there is still required the gate marked number 3, as if through it were the Entrance to the Abbey and Convent. For this another gate of older work continues to afford, the work of the 23rd Abbot, withdrawn from the eyes of beholders by the Engraver, but easily to be recognized where it stands, from the row of tall lindens, extended from the same gate to the Abbey. Likewise that long house, which between the area of the Church and of the Abbey, behind the dwellings of the seculars toward the public way, is extended, augmented by some houses not yet built. and is noted by numbers 13 and 14, on this side promising a School, on that a Parlour; stands only on one part, not yet applied to the use of a School; but the other, together with the portico, about to lead hither from that portico which is beneath the cells of the greater Dormitory, still sticks in the mind of the architect; but the use of the Parlour the same place continues to afford, where lies open the entrance to the Convent under the greater Dormitory. But on the contrary, in recent memory, for the old Brewery which stood to the North, there rose a new one to the South, before the gardens of the Prelate, where once was a wood-shop; as is expressed in Baron le Roy in the notitia of the Marquisate, whence borrowing this plate, in some things I had it corrected. But since under this prospect does not fall the exterior form of the Convent and Abbey turned to the South, this too for those who shall desire it the Engraver provided, by suspending above another little plate, which should represent this face too.

The Abbey of St. Michael at Antwerp 1 Entrance to the Abbey 2 Greater Hall 3 Kitchen of the Abbot and Convent. 4 Refectory. 5 Auditorium and entrance to the Convent.

Designation of the places. 1 Buildings toward the street 2 Entrance to the Church 3 New entrance to the Abbey and Convent, not yet built 4 Church 5 Sacristy 6 Chapter 7 Dormitory 8 Refectory 9 Library 10 Dormitory of the Novices 11 Conventual Garden within the Cloister 12 Portico designed 13 School 14 New Auditorium designed. 15 Abbey 16 Abbatial Chapel 17 Chapel of St. Martin 18 Part of the lesser Cloister. 19 Granary, under which the old Refectory. 20 Old Brewery. 21 Greater Garden 22 Washing-house 23 Stable 24 Barn 25 House of the Provisor 26 Abbatial Garden 27 New Brewery. 28 Walls of the City 29 The Scheldt river 30 Head of Flanders 31 Crommen elleboog-straet. 32 Bastion of St. Michael. The suburban house in Berschot with that gate which once stood at the head of the bridge; but it has been taken away that from the new garden the prospect into the house may be more free.

[25] From this most recent image, to be judged by the eyes of observers, I pass to investigating the form and position of the old church, which Norbert found. This in some measure seems to offer the old painting of the city, which today the Senatorial Library keeps, and from which made about the year 1420, The old prospect from the West I shall someday give the whole city across the Scheldt to be viewed from the West. Now I am content to exhibit the structure of that Abbey which then was, and of which now nothing not changed survives; only that you may consider, before the Tower and Choir, differing nothing from those of today, at least some part of a certain lesser Church, then still standing, since the form of the whole I despair of finding. Indeed that painting seen, I thought I held the thing itself with my hands, and it was little short of my establishing with myself, that that old Canonry had been extended from North to South. But I was almost rolled into despair of the sought knowledge, considering, that a little church so small, it offers only part of the first church, could not have sufficed for performing the functions of the Canonical Office and Parochial at once, for nearly three hundred years, nay four hundred, as many as from the first foundation by Godfrey of Bouillon, or at least from the coming of St. Norbert to Antwerp flowed, up to the consummation of its Choir, which is seen there standing whole. For although someone might wish to suspect both the Tower and the Choir were not from the hand of the first painter; yet he must confess, that he who painted in those things, would by the same labor have painted the whole present Church, not the whole, if then when those were being painted it had stood whole. Besides up to the year 1600 you will find it kept as an inviolable law at Antwerp, that not only the churches, but also most of the altars in them were so disposed, that in them, or before them the faithful about to pray should be turned to the East, whatever inconvenience being set aside.

[26] Amid these things it occurs to one wavering to think, that neither nothing of the old Church is here had, standing with new tower and choir: nor the whole body; but only the Northern aisle, which running between the Tower and the old Cloister, and preserved for a time, afforded a convenient passage from the old Convent to that new Choir; until, the new Southern aisle being built, which does not appear here, and the front nave itself toward the West, it would be safe to throw down even the modest part which remained of this old Church with its little tower, hitherto also reserved, and so to perfect the preconceived Basilica. The entrance into this lies open now only from behind the Choir to the citizens, hastening for the sacred rites: but if you only look at the iconisms of the Abbey, from various and successively engraved plates, the other three iconisms here collected into one little plate, you can think nothing else, than that there was one and the same gate, which from the public way led into the area, common to the Church and Abbey: especially since of the four Iconisms the second and chief, engraved after the year 1570, show the entrance only through the southern aisle seems most distinctly to represent a gate as it were of the Church, in the front of the southern aisle; but the others of the years 1590 and 1610 show no entrance even except this one, and that immediately from the area into the Church. Between these however now there mediates an ample and quadrilateral Cloister, co-extended with the length of the front Church, so that it covers even that aisle, behind which to the area runs the Dormitory; and proceeding from this the Refectory house is bent toward the Abbatial palace, and so encloses the whole aforesaid Cloister or Ambit, and shuts it off from the area: of which nothing is seen in those Iconisms.

[27] What then? Shall we believe, that those so ample buildings were first placed there after the year 1610? The antiquity of more than two hundred years, patent to the eye, will not suffer it, though engraved after the buildings were built on that part, which the very form of the windows and vaults speaks, and compels to believe, that all were built not long after the church, if not at the same time with it. The same will be proven by the Chronology of the Abbots to be deduced below, and one of the cloister vaults, manifestly including the name of Peter Breem, the one who first made the beginning of constructing the new Basilica. Therefore those Iconisms deceive in this, all taken from a certain single and ancient image of the church, made then, when the aforesaid buildings between it and the area did not yet stand, and when the whole dwelling of the Religious still consisted at the Northern side of the church. But the sculptors who followed afterward, according to an exemplar older than those buildings: are to be said, the exemplar once taken, to have adhered to it, and not to have cared to supply what accrued to the built church on the southern side. But this so done you will by no means wonder at, if you wish to understand, that the same defect is still found, in a certain plate engraved after the year 1635, for setting forth the triumphal entrance of the Prince Cardinal into this city.

[28] From those Iconisms nonetheless, although defective for the time in which they were first engraved, and only prove that there was once a gate there, we seem certainly to conclude, that there was once a time, in which such an entrance to the church lay open. There are also those who heard from their parents, that, before the new area behind the choir was opened (but it was first opened in this century) the people were wont to enter through the gate of the parlour into the cloister, and through the cloister into the church. This must have been at least from about the year 1550, in which was paved that long and straight way from the Mint to the Scheldt, with that continuous series of houses, which so terminates the ground of the monastery to the North, that no passage to the church lies open this way. But whether on this part any ever lay open, cannot be defined except by reasonable conjecture. It pleases therefore to conceive, that, before the aforesaid series of houses was drawn, and connected with the walls then also newly built; at least after the former one to the West was closed up, the same way which I have said was cut crosswise, at the sign *, by turning toward the South, until one came to the frontispiece of the church itself, both old and new, placed in the area of the bank, at first free from walls and buildings, but these begun to be occupied and closed about the year 1323, the same way always lying open; yet in such wise that, the new Basilica now standing, there was opened also the lateral entrance into it from the South, that one which the Iconisms alone represent, inasmuch as made after that former one closed to the people.

[29] A foundation for this conjecture is afforded by the very position of both the old Church [and] the new Basilica toward the East; such as it once was is proven from the very old name of the way, now straight, which to have been so constructed from their beginning, that, not from the front, like all others, but from the back they should receive those coming, seems altogether incredible; and therefore I scarcely doubt, that the lime being removed, with which externally and internally the wall of the principal frontispiece is covered, there is still to be found a gate, then lying open, and now obstructed. But to strengthen the conjecture I note, that the way leading from — to the Scheldt, is called by the old name still de Krommen-elleboogh-straet, that is, the Way of the elbow or bent Cubit. Likewise that as for those about to go to the monastery, whether old or new, through the way commonly de Klooster-straet, that is of the Cloister, from the market and old city led, the Way called Upper, commonly de Hoogh-straet; so for those descending from the old Burg along the bank of the Scheldt toward the church of St. Michael, situated on the same bank, there led a certain Lower Way, by various names successively and finally het Schelleken called, up to , and from the course of the ways proceeding from the old Burg, which then I suppose continued further to the South, not only up to the frontispiece of the Michaelite Church, by those points which I noted in the 2nd Iconism… but also up to the Croneburg both gate and tower, which is and was the last boundary of the city, however augmented.

[30] In what place was the Cemetery? These things, which seemed more difficult, and somewhat more remote from the knowledge of the present time, on account of the changed face of the places, being explained by reasonable (as to me at least it seems) conjecture; it will be easy to conceive, in what place was the Cemetery, named at the beginning of §. 1, and the courtyards and the acre of land, adjacent to the same Cemetery. For the Cemetery indeed, you will conceive to have been that space, which is spread between the public Way de Klooster-strate, up to the church, and the old Abbey at its northern side; which space already affords the use of area and gardens, now girt with houses, but once shut off by one continuous wall, such as still the second Iconism represents. But the adjacent acre with the courtyards, you will say is extended hence further to the South, as far as now extends the Michaelite ground; where the old Cloister? which is intersected by the Way called de Kaeystraet. Nor will it be difficult to conceive, in what manner in that which they still call the old Abbey, the older Cloister had itself, or the cloister Ambit in a square, of which one side to the West today survives, continued with the frontispiece of the Basilica itself. For two sides bent from here you will imagine to yourself, which are now occupied, one indeed by the Northern nave of the church, the other by those houses which in the plate come by the name of Granary number 19: and the side bent hence to the East, you will think to reach the nave of the old church, beneath its aisle.

[31] namely beside the chapel of Blessed Mary, now extinct, Thus the aforesaid Ambit or old Cloister, in one corner indeed had joined to it the most ancient chapel of St. Martin; but on the other side touched that Aisle of the old church, which alone I said is seen in Iconism 1, and in it the chapel or altar of Blessed Mary, before which at the coming of St. Norbert in the year 1119 chose burial for herself the Lady Luytgardis, wife of Godfrey, Lord of Breda and Schoten; as from the public registers drew, and indicated to us the Secretary of our city the Lord de Valkenisse. As to the burials of the Abbots, I would believe them to have been in the old church, partly under the pavement laid with great stones, under which also there was a crypt. partly within little places hollowed out at the lateral walls, capable of a higher tomb; as in the ambit of the new choir we shall see Antony Lord of Ogny buried. Perhaps also under the Marian Chapel there was a crypt capable of several sepulchres, to which there was entrance through the Cloister adhering to the chapel: for of such a crypt some talk still persists; and I have heard those who would say, that Waltmann himself was buried there before the subterranean altar; but the stone with which he was covered was afterward brought out into the light, and placed where it now is, opposite the preaching chair. The other ornaments of the old Canonry and Cloister are hidden from us.

§. VI. On the form, change, and alienation of the walls of the Abbey at the Scheldt, and on the Roman antiquities, dug up beside them.

[32] The Scheldt river, which from the Ghent diocese of Flanders glides to us almost from the West, The Scheldt bearing especially on this part swollen by the accession of the no smaller Rupel, dashes the whole mass of its waters into that part, where now are the Spanish castle and the Abbey of St. Michael. For there for a while it bends to the North, until, having passed by Antwerp, as if having discharged the office of saluting it, it bends its course to the West, and having passed by the citadel of St. Mary, opens a way for itself to the North, toward the Zealand estuaries due to it. Hence it comes about that its whole bank toward our city must be fortified with frequent as it were promontories, the wall of the monastery being set against it, they commonly call them Kajas; which, sand being heaped between thick-set piles, afford to ships putting in no small convenience of unloading their burdens in a safe and dry place. The same brings its bed so near to the walls of the Abbey, that nowhere more and more frequently than there must the face of things have been changed. That in past centuries this happened more often, one skilled in such things will easily estimate: to us in the lack of monuments it is impossible to define, how often? but we have a plate, which painted at the beginning of the 16th century, gave in the foregoing Paragraph the first Iconism, from which it is understood that the ground was then full of public and private buildings, and afforded a not uncomely aspect to those sailing past.

[33] The century proceeding to its middle, the people of Antwerp judged it necessary, to fortify the whole Eastern and Southern side of their city with new works; and to be restored often at great expense which labor, though with less effort, bent thence to the North, and carried beyond the Croneburg gate, when it had touched the Michaelite grounds, the Abbey was forced to continue the work up to the quay, called from the hay there wont to be put in fœnaria, commonly de Hoy-kay, as you see expressed in the subjoined Iconism. The prospect of the walls at St. Michael's in the year 1560; The same walls changed in the year 1610

[34] it was handed over into the right of the city; Therefore about the year 1610 it was agreed between the City and the Abbey, that this should cede to it only so much of its ground, as was enough for raising from the heaped earth a rampart, to which there should be free ascent at the head of the Way, now indeed straight, but yet retaining its old name from the Bent-cubit, from under one of the houses belonging to the Abbey; up to behind the oratory of the divine Love; on this condition, that the wall there to be raised, by which the ground of the monastery should be shut off from the walls, the City should provide at its own expense, and preserve for future times. Then was erected that new Michaelite rampart, which the second part of the foregoing Iconism represents, planted with trees, after the manner of the ramparts looking to the East; and there were laid likewise the foundations of the new bastion, about to run out up to the bed of the river, and at once about to break the impetus of the flowing waters, which while it builds there a bastion, and to defend on both sides the edge of the bank, if an external enemy should attempt anything hostile: just as on the other part of the city too, where what is commonly called the New town is terminated, there proceeds a fort, set against ships coming from Holland and Zealand, and named from St. Lawrence.

[35] For founding such a mass, while the diggers deeply removed the sand brought by the river, until they should reach the solid and unmoved soil; We saw, says the Author of the Chorography, certain rare remains of a certain arched work. He himself asserts that the shrine of Mars was once there, there were detected subterranean vaults from a certain tradition of his people. And the opinion of an old Poet favors, whose in the archive are found these verses, with the Lord Valkenisse the Secretary: Here was once the shrine of Mars holding arms, When Antwerp worshipped idols: but pitying, Christ took away the error, Michael ministering. Lucifer from the heavens, hence the bitter Mars he thrust, That Angel of peace, and the strong Satrap of heaven. The shrine being cleansed, the place is titled from him. With the same tradition agrees the Antwerp Chronicle, the remains from the temple of Mars written in the vernacular about a hundred years ago, when it adds, that certain traces of that temple existed up to the year 1580. Great weight too would accrue to the same tradition, if truly that place or a neighboring one, as one of the monks related to me, is found named in the census-books Dinst-velt, or Dinst-acker, that is the Field or Land of Mars. For Dinst is service, Dinen to serve, par excellence to us is the Soldiery, there, as is reported, worshipped to soldier. Hence Mars the President of war and soldiery to our ancestors was called Dinst, and the third weekday is named from him Dinstdag; just as the fourth from Mercury, to our people Woen that is gain, is called Woensdag; the fifth, from the Thundering Jove, Donderdag; the sixth, from Venus called Vry, as if Free, Vrydag; and the seventh, from the begetter of the Gods, Sater-dag. For that the Planets were worshipped by the Belgians under these names, is more certainly established from such a nomenclature, than what concerning Pallas the president of citadels, from his own brain first thrust forth Goropius Becanus; that she under the name of Walpurga, that is the one guarding the Burg, was worshipped in our Burg; and that the heralds of the faith, the title being turned into the honor of St. Walpurga, abolished the profane one.

[36] but this less certain, Yet someone doubts concerning the Temple, and suspects, that those rare remains of arched work are the remnants of old sewers, made for the use of the monastery; or the vaults of a bridge laid over the Fossatum, whence the name clung to the nunnery, placed over or across it. But if that argument of Gentilism worshipped there wavers; to the same an irrefragable testimony is given by the Ossuaries, or Urns, in the Roman manner inscribed D. M., that is To the Gods of the Dead, with their inscriptions and funeral lamps; and also the lacrimatory vessels, into which the collected ashes of burned corpses Roman Libitina was wont to bathe with tears, than the fact that epitaphs dug up there prove, as is known to antiquaries. From this event first I am persuaded, that there was a time, when that part of the Michaelite ground, the Scheldt not yet advanced so far, was occupied by some buildings, and there a dike or public way was drawn. For it was the custom, that funeral monuments of this kind be erected along the public ways (whence that usual, "Stop, traveler") some hundred or even a thousand paces from that town or castle, whence corpses to be burned were carried thither with solemn rite. For it was not permitted to defile walled places with that office, but the matter was conducted in the suburbs; which custom also passed to many Christians, and in various places of Germany the custom still lasts of leading funeral processions outside, to the public cemetery, having its name from the thing of the Lord's-Field, commonly Gods-acker.

[37] the Burg near the place, to have been inhabited by Gentile Romans, But whence you would rather believe the dead brought to the aforesaid place, to be burned in the Roman manner and commended to passers-by with Epitaphs of Roman rite and tongue, than from the Burg of Antwerp: which therefore already of old, and much before Christ was preached there, was the Romans', built probably by them, for the cause of exacting a toll or tax from those sailing past. Thus is had the long-sought demonstration of our antiquity, and that probably from the time of Julius Caesar, some of whose freedmen to have been placed here for a questorship of this kind, the Epitaphs presently to be produced persuade. Wherefore although Baron le Roy confesses, that it cannot be certainly affirmed or denied, whether Julius Caesar, while he was in Belgium, ever was in that place where now Antwerp is seen; yet it becomes most probable from the aforesaid, who even the old name of the place and we deservedly opine it must be so understood, what he himself in the Commentaries on the Gallic War book 6 says, when he says, that Trebonius being sent with three legions, to that region which is adjacent to the Aduatici, that is the Tungri; he himself with the remaining three resolved to go to the river Scheldt, which flows into the Meuse, and to the Ambivariti commonly 't Land, or Ampt van Ryen, of which region the head is Antwerp, came all the way, and there established the aforesaid Toll. But those Romans seem, prone to every obscenity, the name of the place made from its situation An-do-werp or Aen-de-werf, they deformed by an obscene interpretation. that is, At the projection of land brought by the river, to have bent to an obscene nomenclature from their own tongue, and in this sense above the gate of the Burg fortified by them, to have placed an obscener effigy of Verpa or Priapus; which it is to be wondered at lasted among Christians through so many centuries, so that only a hundred years ago it was abolished; the marks of the rest of the idolic body being yet left, and the image of the Mother of God placed above, in reproach of the foul demon once worshipped there by the Gentiles.

[38] To the confirmation of the aforesaid I set before the eyes, collected into one plate, the chief monuments, in the year as I said 1610 dug up from behind St. Michael's, which long were kept with the Secretary Valkenisse, as his father had redeemed them, and now are had with Maximilian Count de Merode, Marquis de Deynze, Baron de Duffel etc., most curious of such things; Among them was notable yet before they were carried hence by the Questor Koukercken delineated to the life; whence these, proportion being kept in all, contracted to a smaller measure you see. The first and chief among them is a square Urn, almost whole, which with its lid a foot and a half high, and one broad, represents the form of a temple, with closed doors, the urn which to Cn. Voluntilius Sophro which to be a symbol of concordant cohabitation proves in his learned Commentary upon this ark the author of the gift, who that and very many other monuments concerning Antwerp matters, by himself and his father most diligently collected, most kindly communicated with me. To the same purpose make on the top two doves sculpted, joining their beaks; likewise two sparrows above the door, birds of Venus; and as many palms, believed to love even themselves among themselves, and to be inclined toward each other though placed farther apart; so that deservedly its possessor was wont to name it, the amatory Urn.

[39] He caused it to be made, Voluntilia Rodine, born indeed of servile condition, but by the benefaction of her patron and lover Cnaeus Voluntilius Sophro, a powerful and noble man, and for herself Voluntilia Rhodine set it up, having attained both liberty and wealth and renown with the name. This her relief also proves, such as you see here, nobly clothed and adorned, and with great pearls about the neck adorned, which sculpted in red marble she herself caused to be placed within the urn, together with the statue of a male head, no doubt resembling Voluntilius; which that you might see equally expressed here, I had to have recourse to Rome to the heirs of Cardinal Azzolini, to whom it had come by the testament of the Queen of Sweden, given as a gift once to her passing through Antwerp.

39 (bis) Within the same urn was enclosed a larger lacrimatory vessel, with some lamps, which you see here placed around the urn; which (as also one peculiar little vessel, shaped into the form of a tear, two thumbs high, with lacrimatories and lamps, but one thumb in diameter) were made of clay of ash color: of which color also are most of the lamps. The greatest of all however, with the figure of a lion, is of red clay; and which is marked with a human head has the name of its potter CTITISTCI written on the bottom. Furthermore in those lamps it comes to be noted, not so much that in the place whence the wick ought to issue and burn, other little vessels also beside the urn. they are most black, but that they still appear as if smoky from fresh and oily smoke. The other two lamps noted under the line (of which the one which has an oblong form is of bronze, but most black) and the other little vessels, were found not within but near the urn, all of common enough form; if you except one, whose lip appears partly broken: but all served for receiving the coals and ashes collected from the pyre.

[40] The monuments which follow, given likewise to the aforesaid Lord Marquis, There are believed similarly dug up there are thought to have been dug up in the same place and work, although the buyer's son does not equally certainly remember it: wherefore the remaining words in them it pleases to set forth to be read by those studious of Roman antiquities. To the Gods of the Dead were inscribed two. The first, in marble a foot and a half long, eight thumbs high, offers this epigraph still whole. TO THE GODS OF THE DEAD, OF TURPILIA four monuments,

NEBRIS, TURPILIUS

MARTIALIS, TO HIS FREEDWOMAN

MADE [THIS] WITH SCARCELY LESS [THAN SHE DESERVED]

Where again is noted the freedwoman's surname, taken from the name of the Patron; for which deceased woman, 1 To a Freedwoman from her patron, with scarcely less than she had deserved, Turpilius Martialis complains that he made [it], probably the lover of the deceased, perhaps also a little Greek, like Voluntilia Rhodine. For as ῥοδίνη, Rosy, is rendered from Greek into Latin, so νεβρίς, is a goat-skin, wont to be attributed to Bacchus; an apt word also for signifying a Tippler-woman, and a little Doe, yet without reproach, since we know that even illustrious men were called Nebridii or Cervini (Deer-like).

[41] 2 To the Adjutant of the Pontiff of the Imperial Haruspices, The other stone of square form, but broken below, of one foot and two thumbs on every part, offers a less perfect sense, with some letters at the end of each line lacking, as I think; but it is thus inscribed:

with several letters lacking at the end of each line, as I think; and it is thus inscribed:

TO THE GODS OF THE DEAD.

OF CN. JULIUS, SON OF CN.,

DOMATUS PRISCUS,

EX-EQUO PUBLIC[LY]

OF THE ADJUTANT

OF THE HARUSPICES

OF THE EMPEROR,

PONTIFF

OF ALBA.

The third stone, if the right corner were not torn off, consists of a perfect quadrangle; a foot and a half less one thumb long, high seven thumbs and a half. This monument too seems to be sepulchral, set up for a certain Curator of a partnership-fund, who by reason of an equal share contributed in the second place into the moneyed partnership with M. Aemilius Crestus, among the 36 partners was numbered the twenty-seventh, in this manner.

OF M. FABIUS FELIX, CURATOR

WITH M. AEMILIUS

CRESTUS

THE MONUMENT FROM

THE MONEY OF THE PARTNERS,

36, THEY MADE.

BY EQUAL SHARE-RECKONING, IN THE 2ND, IN THE 27TH PLACE. [3 To a Curator of a partnership-fund from the Partners,]

[42] No Ethnicism does that inscription contain, as neither the following likewise square stone, ten thumbs long, four and a half high: within whose more ornate border of a thumb and a half (other stones lack a border), and on both sides bored for fixing nails, these words are contained: TO JULIA ACME, FREEDWOMAN OF CAIUS, 4 set up by a son to his mother;

C. JULIUS GEMINUS

AND C. JULIUS CLARUS THE FATHER

TO THEIR MOST DEAR MOTHER

Where if it be permitted to interpret C. L. as Freedwoman of Caesar, we shall have by her proper name Acme, perhaps a freedwoman of Julius Caesar. (but ἀκμή is the Vigor of age, or the Flower of youth) by surname from the name of her patron Julia, for whom when her son C. Julius Geminus had set up that monument, he ordered also to be added the name of the father C. Julius Clarus, still living, and so perhaps ordering it to be added; who could be thought himself too a freedman of Julius Caesar, joined to a Freedwoman, so that the son, by cognomen Geminus, was on both sides a Freedman's son, born of Freedmen. If that conjecture be admitted, it can also be admitted that before Christ was born, and in the age of Julius Caesar or Augustus, in these parts there settled the aforenamed C. Julius Geminus, for the cause of some public office or toll; who, the death of his mother understood from his father's letters, set up for her a stone of this kind, the monument of his love and grief.

§. VII. The chief ornaments of the present Basilica and Abbey.

[43] Having been engaged enough, nay more than enough, around the present basilica, The new Basilica now standing, to clear out the knowledge of obsolete antiquity; I withdraw myself inward, about to contemplate certain of its chief ornaments. The Choir with the chapels going round it, and adhering to the southern side the Chapter house and Dormitory, and one aisle of the cloister ambit, had begun to build; and (unless I am mistaken) had completed the work, Abbot Peter, from the year 1390 to 1413 usefully presiding; in whose time that the Religious began to use the part already built, I scarcely indeed doubt. Olard substituted for Peter, since he is praised for his deeds on all sides in his Epitaph, can be believed, through the thirty years which he presided, to have contributed something to the fabric of the rest of the church. Duchess Isabella was brought into it in the year 1476, Yet the glory of the perfected Temple and Cloister, and of the Refectory and Abbatial hall built for them, is given to John Fierkens, elected in the year 1452; who also first acquired for himself and his successors the right of the Mitre, and wore it up to the year 1476. In his time, namely in the year 1465, died, and was brought hither for burial, the Duchess Isabella; for whom then in the Choir before the altar, of black marble, a great monument Mary her daughter caused to be erected, such as still survives; but despoiled of the bronze border of the Epitaph round the circuit of the tomb, on which she herself lies wholly in bronze, by the Iconoclasts. Of whose fury however three little bronze statues surviving and afterward found, were restored; but the cut-off hands the Lord Paschal van Gessel, sacristan of the place and once my fellow-student, caused to be supplied by new ones fitted. The Epitaph, lest we should lament it lost, and magnificently placed: Francis Swert preserved for us, among the sepulchral monuments and public inscriptions of the Duchy of Brabant collected by him, page 129. Read it on the other page, under the Iconism of the same monument, as it is now seen, lent to us by the Lord Baron le Roy, who caused it to be engraved.

[44] The aforesaid Lord Baron le Roy also lent the Iconism of another old and noble monument, likewise Antony of Ogny in the year 1478 which escaped the diligence of Swert himself, and yet to this day is seen whole enough, within the first chapel from the entrance of the southern gate behind the Choir: which chapel, first dedicated to the holy Apostles; afterward was named of St. Lidwina, Virgin of Schiedam (whose Life I illustrated on the 14th of April) on account of some Relics of hers brought hither from Holland. But these being lost and the worship of the Virgin obliterated, it now serves for worshipping Blessed Hermann Joseph of Steinfeld, a Religious of the Premonstratensian Order, of whom we treated on the 7th of April, and also Saints Adrian and James Canons of the same Order, with the rest of the band of the Martyrs of Gorcum lately Canonized. The Epitaph sculpted on the stone I make from French into Latin, and subjoin to the Iconism. The other cenotaphs, if there were any, of the Nobles buried here, the aforementioned fury took away.

[45] and in the year 1608 Abraham Ortelius. Certain nobler ones of the more recent the author of the oft-mentioned Chorography collected in chapter 8: which may be read there. Here I cannot pass over, because of a man most celebrated in the whole world, written on the wall of the transverse nave beside the window, beneath his effigy, worthy to be seen even in this place, not easily found elsewhere.

EPITAPH

once engraved on a bronze border, but taken away by the Iconoclasts. Here lies the most noble Isabel, as the subscribed line of either parent shows (namely in a probably bronze plate, occupying the front of the tomb itself, as I think, but torn off by the same iconoclasts, sculpted), Countess of Charolais, most devout daughter of Charles Duke of Bourbon; most dear Wife of Lord Charles, only son of the Most Illustrious Prince Philip by the grace of God Duke of Burgundy, Lorraine, Brabant, Limburg; Count of Flanders, Artois, Burgundy Palatine, Hainaut, Holland, Zealand, Namur; Marquis of the Holy Empire; Lord of Salins, Mechelen: who leaving Mary the only daughter from her Most Illustrious Husband, departed in her flourishing age, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1465, on the 13th day of September. May she rest in the peace of Christ.

EPITAPH.

Here lies the noble man Sir Antoine d'Ongnies, Knight, Lord of Bruay, Sarton, Ramecourt, Ligny and Croy, Counsellor and Chamberlain of the deceased Dukes Philip and Charles of Burgundy, and Governor of the city of Lille, who departed in this city on the 19th of March in the Year 1478. Which thus sound in Latin: Here lies the Lord Antony de Ongnies, Knight, Lord of Bruay, Sarton, Ramecourt, Ligny and Croy, Counsellor and Chamberlain of the deceased Dukes of Burgundy Philip and Charles, and Governor of the city of Lille: who in this city died on the 19th of March, of the year 1478.

THE MONUMENT OF ABRAHAM ORTELIUS,

whom Antwerp the city of cities brought forth, whom Philip the King of Kings had as Geographer, you here see. A short span of earth holds him, who himself took the Globe of the lands, illustrated it with pen and maps, but with his mind despised it, with which he looked up to heaven and the heights: constant against hope or fear; he had a life, such as another's wish. That now too eternal rest may be his, favor with prayers, Reader. He died on the 3rd of the Kalends of July, in the year 1598. He lived 71 years, 2 months, 18 days. The Colii, Nephews on the sister's side, to the well-deserving placed this.

[46] This Epitaph therefore is one of the worthier monuments, The Crucifix cast down in the year 1566, restored in the year 1585: which learned strangers are wont to read: the eyes of the rest of the common people other ornaments of the same Church more attract. For although Iconoclasm cast down all the old ones; the notable piety of the following Abbots restored them tenfold, after the heresy subdued and the Religious led back to their seat. But it was provided above all, that the figure of Christ hanging from the Cross, which had been cast down, should be replaced fashioned with a new and better work, with this memorable epigraph: He who cast me down in the year 1566, a follower of Calvin; made me in the year 1585, having indeed been led back to the Catholic faith. the high altar afterward erected, What was the elegance of the altars destroyed by the same storm, you may gather from this, that the first of them, redeemed with gold, the Spanish Merchants sent to Madrid, as worthy to be brought into the King's chapel. But whatever was its beauty, it is far surpassed by that which Matthew Irselius the 39th Abbot caused to be substituted of solid marble, the two paintings of Rubens placed, nearly contiguous to the vault itself. In this, expressed by the singular art of Peter Paul Rubens, is seen the adoration of the Magi; yet I know not whether even more to be esteemed than this is that, which the same Apelles of our age, returned from Italy to his fatherland, first exposed to the eyes of his admiring fellow-citizens; where St. Gregory, among the holy Martyrs George and Sebastian, Domitilla and John and Paul his eunuchs, contemplates the image brought, as from heaven by Angels, of the Mother of God with her little son. This alone long seemed to suffice for the altar, over which is kept the Venerable Sacrament, to be distributed to those about to communicate; until to it about the year 1667 a most beautiful ornament of white and black marble accrued; and so was clothed the whole wall of the left aisle in the Cross of the temple adhering to the Tower.

THE CHURCH OF THE ABBEY OF ST. MICHAEL OF ANTWERP OF THE PREMONSTRATENSIAN ORDER.

[47] But that the right aisle, adhering to the convent, might not much yield to it, my singular friend effected, three of Quellin. the Lord Ambrose van Eyck, Parson and Pastor in Vorselaar and Beerse: who wishing to leave some monument of himself, there in the year 1672 caused to be placed a notable painting, and commensurate to that whole space, 80 feet high, 30 broad, in which is represented the Pool of Bethesda, having seven porticoes; and at it Christ, making the paralytic take up his pallet, and depart sound. That painting is the work of John Erasmus Quellin, the most excellent painter in this age among the people of Antwerp: from whose hand, under the lateral nave behind the preaching pulpit, there are also two paintings, representing the passion and Apotheosis of the Martyrs of Gorcum; and it is thought it will come about, that the rest of the wall under the lateral vaults, on account of the cloister adhering to it void of windows, will gradually be clothed with equal beauty.

[48] Why on the high altar These things being considered in passing, I return to the Choir; not to admire the most beautiful Odeum of white and black marble set before it, commonly Doxale, resting upon twin altars; or the seats going round the Choir itself of elegant sculpture; or the five chapels arranged through the ambit, splendid with marbles and paintings; but on account of the statue of the Mother of God, standing on the top of the high altar, as the chief Patroness of the place, between Saints Norbert and Michael; lest you think this done without prudent counsel. For besides that the whole Premonstratensian Order is Marian; it is peculiar to the Monks of this monastery, to use this formula of Profession: the Mother of God, as the now chief Patroness? Offering, I give myself to the Church of the holy Mother of God Mary and of St. Michael of Antwerp. Hence at least it follows, that the founders of the present Church, the same

willed it consecrated in both names. But if it could be taught, that that formula is older than the present Church; consequently it would become probable that St. Norbert, or the Abbot Waltmann instituted by him, or finally some one of the first, added to the old tutelage of St. Michael also the patronage of the Mother of God. Wigman in his Brabantia Mariana strives to rise higher, and wishes it to have obtained from the first foundation, in such wise that the same which was St. Michael's, was also from of old called the Church of St. Mary. But this, in the silence of the ancients, calling it under the one name of the Archangel only, he would not easily persuade us. His name only too the Abbatial seal bears; him on the very top the Tower gives to be seen; The interior prospect of the Church is offered in a plate, him finally our kinsman Norbert van Couwerven, the 42nd Abbot, wonderful for its notable mass and art, set up above the Propylaeum; which his predecessor had caused to be built, set before the area in the likeness of a triumphal arch, leading from the East to the church, and a vast ornament of the public way at which it stands; as is to be seen in the larger plate, placed at the beginning of the foregoing Paragraph. The rest I gladly pass over, and sparing words, of which the efficacy is more sluggish, I bid you with your own observing eyes to know, in another plate here appended, what is the prospect of the front temple toward the Doxale, and how magnificent it is. But that all things may please those who have advanced thus far, yet to those first about to enter so preposterous an entrance will never not displease; and often the thought has occurred to me, that all things could be turned at no very great expense from the East to the West, so that from the present choir there be made the front nave, easily convertible from east to west. and what is now the front nave of the temple be changed into the choir; the fabric being extended into a hemicycle, and that part which is now circular being flattened into a frontispiece. But this when I hear has come into the mind of others too, chief in the monastery in dignity, I do not despair to see done someday, with the approbation of the whole city. The Eastern Front The Refectory of the Abbey of St. Michael of Antwerp, the Northern side The Western Front

[49] Having proceeded from the temple to the Convent; I will not delay you long in the Library, The abundance of the Library, no less beautiful in the disposition of the place and the order of the shelves, than rich in the number of select codices, which by the year 1657, were said to have grown above 8572; nor have they ceased to be so augmented by daily accessions, that it is now difficult to take account of all, and to arrange them aptly in the place where they now are. Wherefore the present Prelate thinks of refitting for them the most ample hall, once built to that end above the Refectory, which runs between the Dormitory and the Abbatial house: which if it be done, I know not whether in all Belgium there will be another library more beautiful and more spacious, unless perhaps at Tongerlo. Less also do I dwell on describing the ornament of the Refectory itself, though most splendid, where through various Gospel banquets the aforepraised Quellin caused Christ sitting at table to be seen. For what need is there, by a prolix circuit of words to commit to the ears, what the more faithful eyes can know at one glance in a plate, so arranged, as the place presents itself to one standing within, with his back turned toward the south, with an oblique view of each frontal painting, at the twin head of the Refectory. The other side (as from the cloister through the door to those entering it offers itself to be beheld by one having his back turned toward the North) four similar paintings fill; but interspersed with those windows, which pour light into the whole Refectory. The decor of the Refectory from the paintings. That the vault, extended over so ample a place, had been carried higher, is desirable. Hence the sculptor, who delineated the ideas to be transferred into bronze, thought it permitted to himself, at least to correct the defect in the little plate: and that he might do this more conveniently, the images of each side with the windows higher than they really are built, he set forth, changing nothing else in the matter, than the height of the columns painted in the plates; which really are lower, and such as the architectonic rules require, account being had of their thickness. I had to be advised here of this by one skilled in proportions of this kind; lest he condemn the painter of ignorance: who however considering, how much by this change the place appears more august, did not greatly disapprove the delineator's deed. But dismissing the admiration of the Refectory, I set myself to explain the series of the Abbots, which is more important to history, from the same monuments which Chapter III of the Chorography suggests, the older Chronicles of our city, and other aids.

§. VIII. The series of the first 17 Abbots of St. Michael.

[50] The first general Chapter in the year 1128: Waltmann, by St. Norbert himself first in the year 1123 constituted Provost; then by the same, now Archbishop of Magdeburg, ordered Abbot when ordained in the year 1128; together with five other first Abbots likewise ordained, in the following year was present at the first General Chapter at Prémontré in Gaul. But Waltmann presided, whether as Provost, whether as Abbot, about 15 years: and is believed buried, in that very place of the present Church at the northern side, where even now lies a stone, in what place was Abbot Waltmann buried? of white stone not very large, in which it is to discern the traces of no sculpture, except the topmost part of the Abbatial staff, all the other lineaments being worn away; in whose place, after the reconciliation of the church, which had been polluted by the Iconoclasts, on the same stone, lengthwise, in German letters were sculpted these words: Here lies Lord Waltmann, the first Abbot of this church, died in the year 1138, who died in the year of the Lord 1138, on the 17th of the Kalends of May. Pray for him.

[51] The author of this Epitaph thus to be rewritten the Verses address, once written on the wall, now covered or abolished, as follows: the sepulchral stone renewed in the year 1575 Thou sufferest not, that it perish, with so many years now slipping by, The Fame of the man, the first Abbot, increased with so many honors. Him, William the Count, the Prelate, thou bringest back into the airs Lest the ancient Fathers perish through long oblivions. Below it is noted, that William set up, or if you prefer replaced, that monument, in the year 1575, that is the tenth after the Iconoclastic furies. another cenotaph of the year 1638. But not content with that Chrysostom van der Sterre, after the aforesaid William the fourth, at the same wall placed another of white marble cenotaph, inscribed with golden letters; above which Waltmann himself is seen, elegantly sculpted, and piously kneeling before the Virgin sitting with her son; and this was placed in the year 1638, namely the fifth centenary after the death of Waltmann.

[52] II Emelin, ruled 26 years, died 1161, on the 29th of September. So the Chorography, but either in this to be corrected, The Pope and the Marquis take up the tutelage of the place. that it says Emmelin ordained in the year 1138 (for thus only would be found 23 years of Rule) or in the very number of 26 years. I would prefer to believe, that the example of abdicating the office before death (so frequent in the successors, as will presently appear) was taken from Waltmann himself, a most humble and most religious man; and he ceding, Emmelin was ordained in the year 1135: so will remain the 26 years of his rule, which it is probable were received from an old Catalogue (as in such cases is wont to be done); but the year of ordination by the author of the Chorography, or rather by the erring typesetter, badly noted 1138, for 1135. And thus the 13th year of this Abbot will have been, of Christ 1148, when Pope Eugenius III writing to him and his Brothers, on the Nones of April, Indiction 11, as he had been asked; The place, he says, in which you are devoted to the divine service, under Blessed Peter's and our protection we take up; and in the year 1155 Godfrey III Marquis of Antwerp, in the Chorography professes, that he has their monastery and goods in his defense, as one who is their Lord and Advocate.

[53] III Alard ruled 1 year not entire: inasmuch as he died in the year 1162, on the 1st of September.

[54] IV Tibald, when he had ruled 9 years, resigned in 1171.

[55] V Richard, when he had ruled 18 years, himself too resigned in 1188. To him Pope Alexander III, treading in the footsteps of the aforesaid Eugenius, confirmed in the year 1179 the cession of the Church made by the Marian Canons and gave many other Privileges, as the author of the Chorography writes. Under the same Abbot, or at least before Frederick Barbarossa in the year 1189 departed into Syria, The diploma of the Emperor Frederick, when after the death of Godfrey III, the Marquisate of the Holy Empire and the Duchy of Brabant Henry IV now obtained, and so after the year 1186. About the year, I say, in which died Richard the Abbot, and Walter succeeded, the aforesaid Emperor gave a notable Diploma, whose autograph, together with a most elegant seal, with the Michaelites very well preserved, first into the light brought Baron le Roy, and inserted in his Notitia page 15, worthy to be reprinted in this place. Frederick by the grace of God Emperor of the Romans and ever Augustus, to Henry the Duke and his faithful citizens of Antwerp, his grace and all good. To your fidelity we render very many and the greatest thanks, that unanimously for increasing and preserving the Throne of the Imperial Crown you labor, and the March to our honor and that of the Empire, which is pleasing to us, faithfully defend and preserve. For this too we greatly commend you, render you praises and proclamations, praising the citizens of Antwerp that, as it is intimated to the ears of our Majesty, the church of St. Michael by your benefits and alms you sustain, and in holy religion and honesty laudably preserve. But because out of our abundant grace and in view of eternal recompense the church of St. Michael, whose patronage we desire to have in heaven, into the protection of our Majesty, to be guarded and governed we have taken up; concerning the beneficence bestowed on the Michaelites, therefore we will it to be free from all collection and exaction, both public and private; commanding by Imperial authority, that henceforth no one presume to molest or disquiet it in anything, concerning all its possessions which it holds. There is lacking, which is wonderful, not only where or on what day and year the Diploma was given, and declaring these free. but also the subscription of the Emperor and the Chancellor; and only is present the Seal, which I have mentioned, and here subjoin, that the curious Reader may with his own eyes take in the form of the Imperial dress of the 12th century, still retaining much from that in which the Fulda Antiquities, exhibited at the Acts of St. Boniface in this very Volume, before page 459, represent Charles and Carloman the brothers, Kings of the Franks, crowned by Pope Zacharias, except that the cloak flowing with a greater train, drawn from the right shoulder behind the back to the left side, may cover even the very knees and shins of the one sitting: and that from the Imperial crown descend onto the shoulders bands, as it were Episcopal.

[56] VI Walter de Stripen the Fleming, ruled 4 years, and died 1192, on the 9th of November. His monument seems to be that great blue stone, which now before the gate of the Choir on the side of the Gospel

is found laid in the pavement, The burial under a stone now to be found in the new church, the lineaments almost worn away, and visible only to a sharper eye, still manifestly retaining the habit of a Premonstratensian Abbot, whose name the initial letters WA, mutually interwoven, express; although the ample border round about, which is here omitted, set round with the four Evangelical animals expressed at the corners, contains an Epitaph laid over the old one, much more recent, of a certain Vicar of the 16th century, William. And perhaps, that to this might in some measure be fitted the lineaments of the older deceased, now nearly worn away in the space of three centuries, and fitted to a certain far younger Vicar of the Abbey: by the feet of those passing by, there were wholly removed the words or verses sculpted on the base, and the Crozier, which on the stone standing for Walter could equally have been sculpted as the Abbatial crozier, just as it was sculpted for Waltmann, still conspicuous on his sepulchral stone. And in this way I think all were buried, both the preceding and the following Abbots; and that either in the old church, if already then it was the custom for Prelates to be buried in the church; or at least in the Ambit, which they call the Cloister. And perhaps those accurately searching will find at least some fragments of several similar monuments transferred to other uses: for even in the first step, which leads from the Abbey to the Choir, we see a stone of this kind laid almost half, still retaining some letters at one edge. But why do I not interpret the letters WA, so that the lineaments of Walter in some measure appear. as William Abbot, that there be understood the first or second of this name deceased in the 14th century? Namely those still have their Epitaphs preserved in memory, longer and more elaborate, than could be sculpted either on the base or the border. Meanwhile you see here a habit not so very different from that which to this day the Prelates use, and only flowing less loosely.

[57] VII Helyas, when he had ruled 7 years, resigned, and died in the year 1199, on the 24th of December.

[58] VIII Giselbert presided 6 years; and resigned, and died in the year 1205, on the 6th of October. To him in the year 1200 Pope Innocent III, confirming the Acts of his predecessors, added certain new privileges, as to certain tithes, liberties of burial, and exactions of secular Princes.

[59] The custom of resigning the Prelacy frequent. IX Hugo ruled 3 years, and resigned, and died in the year 1208, on the 7th of January, where understand the year, as also thereafter to be extended up to Easter, and so that, to those now beginning from the Kalends of January, he is to be reckoned as dying in 1209. But here notes the Author of the Chorography, that the same seems to have resigned and died, because now for the third time consequently both are said to have been done in the same year. Indeed these last three, having followed the mutual example, I would easily believe made the cession in their last illness, when they hoped no longer to live; and that perhaps so that they might exercise the power of electing a successor delegated to them by the Brothers. Concerning Tibald and Richard there is no cause for us to doubt, that they survived the cession made by them somewhat longer; but either unable to rule on account of old age, or wearied through zeal for quiet contemplation. But the true resignation, that is the translation of dignity and right to another, customary to the Michaelites, the Epitaph of the 25th Abbot clearly proves, on whom (as is there said) the office of ruling another Prelate conferred; but with none disapproving, that it be understood done with the consent of all prerequired and had.

[60] X Arnold de Erpse, was created in the year 1210. The cause of the Abbey vacant for two years no one expresses, The Abbey is vacant for two years. nor would I presume to divine it; unless perhaps some hindrance in him, whom Hugo had named successor, on account of which he was not received by Henry the Duke and the aforesaid Marquis; or certainly his Benediction had to be deferred, on account of the absence of John Bishop of Cambrai, following the camp of the Emperor Otto IV up to Italy: for he is found in the year 1209 at Spoleto in the month of December to have subscribed the privileges of the Abbeys of Porta and Walkenried, as is to be read in the Cambrai History of John Carpentier volume 1 page 374. Arnold ruled 9 years, after which he was demanded and elected at Bonne-Espérance, where he ruled the church 11 years. Meanwhile [61] XI Hermann ruled and died in the year 1230 on the Kalends of July, and on the sarcophagus was inscribed this distich: Here lies Hermann, whom there carried off the year of Christ, the thousandth, twice hundredth, and thirtieth.

[62] XII Sigerius, a brief Abbot of a few months, dead in the same year as the former, on the 24th of November. [Hence begins the custom of surnaming the Prelates from their family or fatherland.] The manuscript Catalogue of the monastery, yet in a different character, has added, Born at Balen, whose place's Church perhaps was then administered by the Michaelites; in the year then 1266 conferred on their daughter, namely the monastery of Averbode, by the testimony of le Roy in the Marquisate page 274. But that at this time first is found ascribed to the Abbots the name of their natal place, makes me think, that the preceding Walter and Arnold, surnamed de Stripen and de Erpse, by a nobler title, as sprung from the Lords of those places; for to the Noble alone it was then customary, and that had begun no more than two hundred years before, to the Noble alone, I say, it was then customary to be surnamed from the places of their Domains: in imitation of whom other ignoble men began to take a surname from the place of their nativity.

62 (bis) Furthermore those two, thus dead in one year, the demanded and given back from the monastery of Bonne-Espérance near Binche in Hainaut, Arnold, in the aforecited Catalogue of the Abbey, is numbered as Abbot XIII, as if different from Abbot X, when however the Michaelites reckon him to be one and the same, whom in this I would not wish to contradict: but they say, that in this second rule he lived 8 years, of which in the fifth Henry the Duke (probably the V succeeding his father in that very year 1235) gives liberty to the Canons of St. Michael, that they may build walls around the ambit of the cloister wherever they wish. Afterward the same Arnold resigned, and died on the 9th of January 1239. Let there be therefore for us Abbot [63] XIII Eggerius, who ruled 5 years, and resigned: and died in the year 1244 (now 45) on the last of January. The tower collapsed in the year 1244. His rule the ruin of the Tower makes memorable to us, collapsed in the year 1241, while the Religious were singing the solemn Mass, as from the city Registers noted and indicated the Secretary Valkenisse. But it is credible, that the same rose again with a firmer and greater work in the same place, where the former had stood and the present now stands, as far as was needed for the use of the bells, which so remained unfinished for nearly a hundred years, when its completion will be indicated under the 21st Abbot Martin.

[64] XIV Gerard de Lyra, from the town next to Antwerp, The faculty of inheriting given to the Michaelites. who ruled the Church of St. Michael 14 years, in the first of which Innocent IV issues a diploma, by which to the Canons of this Church is given the faculty of succeeding to the goods of their parents, in the same manner, as if they had remained in the world; which faculty Clement IV, in the year 1267; and Martin IV, in 1282 confirmed, judging that this hindered nothing of the solemnity of religious Profession. Which let those note, to whom it now seems difficult to grasp, in what manner a right of this kind consists with the truth of the religious state in the men of our Society, before the solemn vows of the Professed, and the public vows of the formed Coadjutors. But there is had the Epitaph of Gerard the Abbot thus set forth, Me whom the rock covers, Gerard, Lyra brought forth; And He who rules all things, the King, here deprived me of life. Living I was called the Pastor of the present Sheepfold: I am not what I had been, but vile dregs and rottenness. What I am, reader, you will be: time passes: groan, weep: Unwilling you will follow me: the Lord for me, I pray, beseech. Under this Epitaph was written: They bury me in the year of the Lord 1258 on the 16th of July: which I would not wonder were composed by himself living and ordered to be sculpted, a space being left vacant after "year of the Lord 12," which after his death should be filled.

[65] XV John, called de Lyra, I know not whether from his fatherland, or rather from his family, which of that name was already then at Antwerp of the Knightly order, and which in the year 1196 had given to the city a supreme Praetor, commonly Markgrave, by name William, but in the fifteenth century now grown up, two Consuls, William and Walter; then Arnold, The family de Lyra of Antwerp of the Knightly order. from 1506 to 29 fourteen times discharging that Magistracy; whose descendants, having passed into the name of the Berchems, gave Henry and Florence, both nine times adorned with that title. To say nothing of the Immersels, the other branch of the same Lyra family, which bore altogether five supreme Praetors, and also John, in one seven-year-period four times Consul. Furthermore John de Lyra ruled, on whose account we have touched these things, 13 years, and afterward resigned, and one year after the resignation died, namely in 1272, on the 11th of November.

[66] XVI Giles de Biervliet, created in the year 1271, ruled 8 years; The Abbot of Antwerp made General of the Order. afterward elected and demanded by Prémontré, discharged the supreme Magistracy of the whole Order for three years; then resigned, and having returned to Antwerp, led a private life there still 4 years: for he died only in the year 1286, on the 16th of July, thus praised in his Epitaph, A clement, humble mind, clean flesh, a pleasant life, Commend Giles Biervliet, indeed worthy: Let therefore the flock of the faith pray, that a life of rest The supreme grace of God may give him perpetually. But his death is thus noted at the head, Twice six hundred, twice three, twice forty In the year he departed: to him may Christ be true rest.

[67] From Mechelen, of Consular stock. XVII Henry de Mechlinia, not so called from his family, then also noble among the people of Antwerp, to whom it gave eleven Consuls, in the space of a little more than forty years, on the confine of the 15th and 16th centuries; but from his fatherland; as appears from his Epitaph, which is recited to us as such from Swert, Full of counsel, a fair man, wholly pleasant, And an excellent Father, pious and Pastor of this Flock, Born at Mechelen, lies here Henry buried. He a venerable mirror of Prelatic morals, Among the Magnates he lived well: to render thanks Liberal; discreet, eloquent, and was witty. Who while he lived, for twice two lustra ruled The Cloister, but add the space of two years. You who read these words, that the comely Mother-Virgin For him may obtain divine solace. Amen. But the time of his death is thus further described at the head of the casket: When the year was read a thousand with thrice a hundred, Death slays this man with its darts on the Octave of Michael. That is the 6th of October, but going back from the year 1300 through 22 years you reach 1278: the very one in which his predecessor Giles passed to Prémontré, whatever others may hallucinate about the beginning of Henry.

§. IX. The succession of the Abbots of the middle age, most of whom are praised in their Epitaphs from the temple or house augmented.

[68] XVIII Godfrey de Waerloos, is heaped with many praises in his Epitaph, at the beginning of which it is signified that he died in 1328, on the 11th of January, who to us, now beginning the year from the Kalends of January, would be said to have died in 1329:

When one writes the year, C thrice, M, three X, less I twice, On the third Ides of Janus, alas! departed Godfrey The Abbot, a faithful man, a noble star of Pastors, Called de Waerloos: who, vanquished by no crime, With watchful care held his rights for the Cloister; A cultivator of virtue, the law of peace, the avenger of crime; Author of wealth, of morals, of the temple, of the flock, and of the houses; Conforming to the glad or the sorrowful, pleasing to the honest. The eye is witness, affording spectacles to his deeds. That with thee, O Christ, he may reign, this Flock entreats. The space also of his rule of 28 years, is thus noted at the head: For twice ten years, with twice four twelve (i.e. months) Here I had been Rector: pray for me, I ask, Reader. He had therefore been installed about the beginning of the year, to us, 1301, after the Abbey had been vacant for at most two months. In what things he in the time of his rule augmented the House or Temple, I would wish I could more distinctly explain. Whatever however he did, he must have done about the old church, now standing for nearly 350 years, and the cloister joined to its Northern side; since to the South there was nothing except certain workshops of works outside the cloister.

[69] John Abbot of Averbode abdicates himself, This Abbot's time, in his fourth year running, the return of John, the 14th Abbot of Averbode, to his Mother the Antwerp church, whence in the year 1289 he had been taken, greatly illustrated. For after he had wonderfully augmented the place committed to him both in spiritual and temporal goods through 15 years, by an example of humility, by no means rare among the Premonstratensians (as we have seen), he abdicated his dignity, and in his native Convent spent five years, by which he prepared himself for death: which met, among the Abbots of Antwerp he merited a tomb with this Epitaph: Of immense praises is worthy the Averbode Abbot, now a Brother. May the pious Mother succor him. Highest Son of God, have mercy on Brother John: Through thee may Paradise be given him in all years. [ He was born at Werchter, and called de Rotzelaer; and at Antwerp a private man he dies. May he be pleasing to Christ, and in heaven sanctified, Parish-priest of Coersel, may he now be blessed without end. In the year a thousand three hundred and nine, He had lived in the world: may he be with Jesus of Nazareth. The people of Averbode say, that he is proclaimed in their monuments as a Saint, and note his day of death the 11th of August: but they err in noting the year 1308: since more certainly we learn hence the year 1309. The Chorographer about to relate that Epitaph, writing about the year 1659, asserts, that he found it noted by the Lord Gerard van Loen, more than a hundred years before Abbot of St. Michael. But such a one at that time there was none, Gregory de Hagis presiding from the year 1538 to 1551 inclusive. And so I do not dislike the conjecture of the Reverend Lord Theodore Ryswyk the Provisor, as the Epitaph teaches, transcribed by Abbot Gerard van Leon. Who is this? whose diligence I profess to have variously helped me, suspecting that according to the custom of that age the initial letter of the name G was written, rendered by some Godfrey, by others Gerard; who by his ancestral surname van Loen called, but from his fatherland de Waerloos called (for there is by that name a village in Brabant, midway between Antwerp and Mechelen), was the 18th Abbot of St. Michael, two hundred years before the Chorography was written, contemporary with John of Averbode: which I leave to the further examination of the Michaelites themselves.

[70] XIX William de Bruxella called Cabiliau, at the head of his sarcophagus, is introduced speaking thus: For twice six years here, and nine months, I ruled: me, gentle God, snatch from all punishments. But his praises, and the year and day of death, 1341, on the 25th of November, are thus explained in his Epitaph: William the upright Abbot in merits, and a mild man, Behold what he is, you will be: be a help to him by prayer. Born at Brussels, a canon of Tongerlo, Parish-priest of Diest, here a Father and consecrated Pastor, He strove to be a Guardian to the Flock, to be a keeper of the law; To be governed by reason, to give pious vows to God the King. Accustomed to psalms, filled with the sweetness of good fame, Glad to guests, relying on right governance; Of purer entrance, pressed by various temptation, Constant in his proceeding, may his departure from the world be happy. To a thousand three hundred I joined, and also four times ten, The night yielded to him with [its] end after the feast of Catharine. If a fuller history of the Monastery existed, we should know what contradictions or adversities he suffered at the beginning or entrance to his dignity; that he was purer of the simoniac stain, than those times bore, the Poet seems to have wished to signify.

[71] XX William II, with surname variously written Lympiaes, Lumxiaes, or Liminas, and also de Antverpia: but that the first writing is to be preferred persuades the little book on the seven patrician Tribes of Antwerp, The family Limpiaes. of which the fourth de Wilmars gave in the 14th century Nicholas, husband of Elizabeth Limpiaes, from the year 1379 to 1403 nine times in this city a Sheriff or Senator. He from the verses inscribed on his tomb is understood to have died in the year 1353, on the 11th of October, when he had ruled nearly 12 years. Rector for twice six years was this man here, without ten Weeks: may he lack punishments; may he be joined to the pleasant. Lympiaes here called, an Abbot filled with virtue, By this stone bounded lies, William covered. He modest, refuting the base at every hour, Liberal, honest, changing the reprobate into better. At eating, he made himself reverend by sumptuousness, And governed himself by sobriety. He held justice, nor diminished wealth: clothed with words, He himself, skilled, gave aid through counsel. Compassionate to the sorrowful, he was ever ready for good things, On the feast of Gommarus departing, with a modest end He left the way of the world, C thrice, M written, L, and I thrice. You who above the stars sit, O King, give him to live with thee. In the second year from his election, of Christ 1343, there issued a diploma at Antwerp, that by every right and liberty of the citizens the Canons of St. Michael also should use.

[72] XXI Martin de Leuys, or Loys, by a name of two syllables, but variously written, was himself too of Antwerp, for this the Epitaph indicates, when it praises him as born of this town, thus. Under this rock lies Martin the grim buried, Called Lo-ys, compassionate over the afflicted, Adorned with morals, born of this town. A gentle Abbot, a liberal host, and also glad: The pious peace of the Brothers, the flower too of the Fathers. The high Tower here He completed, repaired very many broken things. Harmful damages, nor seemly ones, he removed; his Tower completed, In repairing was great diligence to the cloister. M is sung, C thrice, L add, twenty, and two; When it was the sixth of February, behold he perishes, the Kalends. She who above the stars sits, to him, O Christ, may thy Parent give herself. He died therefore, with a pyramidal peak. according to the style of that age, in the year 1372, according to today's reckoning 1373. The peak placed on the Tower by Martin was pyramidal, as then nearly all the other towers had; and such we saw painted from a certain long volume, on occasion of a suit before the year 1400 turning between the people of Antwerp and of Rupelmonde, representing both banks of the Scheldt, with buildings placed on this and that, public and private; where the Michaelite church, still small and under a single simple roof, is marked. But that the reader might not be ignorant that the time of his rule was 18 years, 13 weeks, thus it was read at the head of the aforesaid tomb, For thrice six years, three weeks, and ten, I ruled; gentle King, join me to the Serene of heaven. Through which time if you go back from the day of death the 27th of January, you will find, that he was installed on the 28th of October in the year 1354; and that the Abbey after the death of William II was vacant a whole year and 16 days.

[73] XXII William III, called Bruylocht or Brulocht, of Antwerp, For thrice six years here, and eight months Rector, O Christ, I was: gentle be to me I pray, and beseech, Reader. Thus at the head sculpted it was read, the rest as follows: Prelate of the cloister William, in this well pleasing, Born of this present town, called Brulocht, He gave living a laudable example, the temple Walls drawn around the monastery, Often frequenting, singing psalms, celebrating Masses, He himself with strong, hard walls established the cloister, And also with manifold codices adorned it. Against those vexing and grieving him by litigation He preserved his right, and watchful overcame them. He was not haughty, but bowed and quiet: Pleasing to guests, well mild, and a silent man. At night soon before the feast of Quintinus, when there number M, less X, C four times, he dies: this black stone covers [him]. St. Quintinus is worshipped, on whose feast the preceding night he died, the 31st of October.

* whether faminis or famnis

§. X. The Abbots in the 15th century, most also well-deserving of the fabric.

[74] XXIII Peter Breem of Antwerp. He in the 8th year of his rule, The city-perambulating Procession with the Marian Statue, of Christ 1398, conducted the city-perambulating procession, on the Sunday within the Octave of the Mother of God Assumed, then falling on the 18th of August. Of this procession this memorable thing the Chronicles narrate; first to be carried round in it then that miraculous little image of the Mother of God, which had been the beginning of the Marian church. Nor would the same Abbot have had a small part in counsel of this kind; inasmuch as then the first Person in the city. He, lest it should be taken from him under Pope Sixtus IV, the Abbey being brought back under Commenda, when the Senate of Antwerp deprecated it in the year 1477, used among other things this argument; the Abbot then the first person in it: because the Abbatial dignity, another with us, or even under our suburbs, there is none, which should concelebrate and adorn with us the sacred festivities and solemn processions. But the order of proceeding is said to have been various between the Canons of both Colleges: for sometimes alternate pairs of the Black and the White were wont to go, sometimes in series here the Black, there the White: but whether this or that was done, the Abbot closed the order. what then was the order between both groups of Canons? But now, since our city has been made Episcopal, and from this an ampler dignity accrued to the Marian Chapter, the matter is so ordered, that the other Religious going before, there follow under their own Cross with the Abbot the Michaelites, then the Marians with the Bishop.

[75] The same Peter gave the beginning of building the new Basilica which to this day stands, The beginning of the new basilica at St. Michael's: beginning from the Choir and the chapels drawn round it: which, as also his other works, from his Epitaph is thus understood: Here lies fixed Peter Breem, so called: His fruit is approved in every virtue. For he had been a pious Pastor, and a good author of wealth: He was an instructor of morals, and a forerunner of honors; Compassionate to the wretched, and well liberal to the poor. He yielded to none; in his right he conducted himself well. He founded the last pleasant part of the Temple: With a wall he strengthened the Cloister, adorned the Gate. Before the dawn of George he passed from this world: May He who created all things give him perpetual light. And at the head: Here I lie Peter Breem, may Peter be blessed: I ruled for twice ten years with three this Cloister. But the Choir (for so is to be understood what is called the last part of the temple, although built earlier in time) the Choir, I say, of today, with the chapels going round, Peter so founded, that he even completed it in the work itself, the vaults however perhaps excepted.

[76] The Choir indeed not yet consummated, he could not fittingly have begun, with the Chapter House, the Dormitory, and part of the Ambit: and perfected that part of the new Convent to the south, above which runs the present Dormitory, where are both the Chapter House and the Parlour, and before each, proceeding with seven vaulted compartments, the Eastern part of the present Ambit. But of these seven vaults the middle one has a circular boss, like the bosses of the rest, yet not sculpted with the images of holy men as those, but with the Angel Michael, with this motto which to this day is seen there, less aptly turned to the laws of meter: O holy Michael, have mercy on me Peter Breem. Nor would I wonder if the same stone hangs over the place, under which he himself had chosen burial for himself, although he did not obtain it, but seems added to his predecessors in the old ambit, from the idea of the whole work now standing. the new one not yet perfected, and therefore still less apt. Of the same age seems to be the vault of the greater Gate set toward the public way, by which entrance is given to the area before the Convent and Abbey amply extended, and now planted with pleasant trees; yet not in that place where our plate expresses the gate of the new work, but at the end of the houses there designed and not yet perfected, as I noted above at number 24. Peter died, from the aforenoted numbers and from the manuscript Catalogue, in the year 1413, on the 20th of April; no doubt leaving designed to his successors the idea of the whole work, so happily begun.

[77] XXIV Olard Terlinck, when he had ruled that church 38 years and 10 months, afterward resigned, and died on the 6th of September in the year 1452, surviving the resignation made by him perhaps not a whole year. To him Pope Innocent VIII in the year 1428 gives the power and right of conferring the Tonsure and the minor Orders. He is praised in his Tomb with these verses: Although this rock covers the bones of the reverend Father, Olard Terlinck; yet his fame surviving Lively will ever be: who while he had presided as Abbot Of this Church, no thing remained unaugmented. The Sacristy was augmented by him with precious gifts, The Library with books, the Convent with ample rights. He himself was watchful over the Flock, very liberal to the needy, Bountiful to guests. This honor he of his own accord left When he had presided nearly thirty-nine years, A thousand four hundred and fifty-two Years of the Lord being past; the sun took him away, The sixth of September. May he now enjoy the true Sun. Thus far with Swert I have written Olard, and to follow this the Author of the Chorography also chose; The foundation of the chapel in the Horse-market committed to him: although he confesses there are those who name him Alard, nor are there lacking public instruments on parchment, published in his name, where he is entitled Oloudus, very distinctly and in capital letters, as I myself saw; but below is seen hung the old Seal of the monastery which even now the Abbots use, which below in a more apt place §. 15 will be given to be seen. I have a copy of an instrument concerning the foundation of the chapel of SS. Mary and Eligius in the Horse-market, with a bell, a bell-tower, and a perpetual Chaplain, to be made among us by the Dean, Provisors, and the Ministry of the Smiths, that of Masses and other divine Offices provision might be made for the poor of that ministry, for whose dwelling and sustenance a house had been bought in that place; from which house up to that of Blessed Mary which is Collegiate and Parochial, and the others of that town, so great is the distance, that those poor, from old age and otherwise feeble, are deterred from approaching those churches. who there names himself Oloudus, To this foundation, to be established by Pontifical authority, the Abbot of St. Michael constituted Commissary by Pope Nicholas V, in the year 1451, on the 12th of the Kalends of May, performs the office enjoined on him, by letters given on the 14th of August of the same year, and everywhere names and writes himself Oloudus.

[78] XXV John II, by surname Fierkens, of Antwerp, The right of Ring and Mitre granted in the year 1459 in the year 1458, the 6th of his rule, from Pope Pius II obtained the right of Ring and Mitre, in the year 1459, the cause being added that his monastery, among the rest of those parts very solemn, is notable and the head of three other notable monasteries, whose Abbots everywhere use the Mitre, and he himself was wont to be invited or asked to be present at Baptism, the obsequies of Nobles, and solemn processions with other Abbots: the Pontiff judging it unworthy, that a Father Abbot should shine with less decor than his sons. The excellent Acts of his time, which was of 23 years, thus the Epitaph explains. Here lies in the tomb Fierkens, by virtue John, the Refectory built A notable Prelate: this his upright life teaches. He was the venerable Abbot of this temple, and in this City born, prudent, best, and pious. By his morals he merited, with none disapproving, the office Of ruling; another Prelate conferred it on him. O well advised! Secret to the needy crowd He gave gifts with his right hand, his left yet not knowing. How much a kind Pastor profited by watching In his beloved Flock, very many signs admonish. the church perfected, likewise the suburban house. For he built a beautiful place for the banquets of the Brothers And above the Library is supported with books; And the houses of the Prelate the hall adorned, everywhere Restoring lost things, and adding new: And the middle Cross of the temple, and the part, and the choir He perfected, Beerschot and the excellent house: And rights being augmented to his own, Mitres, and habits he left: For twice ten years and three he presided. Now he lies, an example to the other Pastors: his mind sought The high heaven, and enjoys God. He died on the 19th of January, in the year to us 1476.

[79] To the Choir, which this Abbot is said to have perfected, nothing could have been lacking but the vault, as I said above. The middle Cross, with the rest of the part of the temple, But that Refectory is the very one which the Religious again use, or its front nave toward the West, where had been the entrance of the old church, and ought also to be of the new, did not yet stand, when the plate was painted, whence I took Iconism 2, but was already being prepared; only one aisle of the old church surviving, which should shut off the new choir and those officiating in it from the noise of the smiths' works. But with the front temple and the Cross, the remaining three sides of the new Ambit, begun by Peter, could equally rise. Nor would you doubt that the Refectory, the same that now is, was then too brought into use; on this account that in the memory of our fathers, the Religious are said to have used another smaller one at the old Ambit. For that place is not so ancient, that it can have this John as its author, as is patent to the eye; nor is it credible that so great a mass, which finishes and closes the whole fabric of the new Abbey, joining the Dormitory to the Abbatial Hall, was built solely for receiving the Dukes of Brabant in lodging, although Charles V and Philip his son used it, the Religious for a while yielding the place, and then driven out by the Geux and the Duke of Alençon. for some years after the dispersion they used another smaller one. They however when they afterward returned, fewer in number than to need so ample a place, for several more years continued to use the other secondary Refectory: until their former frequency being restored there came a desire of cleansing the former Refectory from the filth, with which the barracks of the praetorian soldiers, the Prince being present, had filled it, and of refitting it to its former use. And indeed, why should they, after the whole Convent translated to the south, so greatly needing the Refectory contiguous to it, have built a place so opportune for this necessity for another end, they who in the rescript of the year 1635 showed, that no part of their Monastery is held built by any of the Princes, by whose title there could be exacted more than gratuitous lodging; just as the Princes of Belgium Albert and Isabella, the Cardinal Ferdinand, and the other Governors after him continued to use it, when it happened to them to turn aside to Antwerp. The Beerschot house, of which the Epitaph makes mention, is distant from the Croneburg gate, the nearest to the monastery on the south, a large half-league, offering itself to those coming once in that prospect, in which you see it expressed in the larger plate, representing the whole Abbey, in one corner.

[80] Was this one given to his predecessor, long before death, as Coadjutor? XXVI Andrew Aechtenryt, born at Hoogstraten (that is a noble town of our Marquisate, the head of the district named from itself, of which the whole book 7 of Baron le Roy treats), when he had presided nearly two years, died in 1478, on the 14th of December. He therefore is that one, whom the Chronicle of Zealand says, together with the Abbot of Tongerlo and other Prelates of Brabant, fortified with dikes the land, added by alluvion at Sommelsdijk and Melhernis, where soon a large village arose, called Old-tongue, commonly d' oude-Tonge. Many grounds certainly possessed by the Michaelites in Zealand, memory holds. The rest the following Epitaph will speak; in its very beginning suggesting suspicion, when it says him long elected, that his predecessor John II chose him with the consent of the Brothers as Coadjutor for himself with right of succession, just as below is expressly read John III did. Receive it. Whom long ago here the concord of the Brothers took as Father, Behold now Andrew is turned into ashes. Born at Hoogstraten, of the ancient family Aechtenryt, A constant man, upright in morals, and grave; A lover of Religion, he bore the hardships of Religion: the Commenda, attempted against the monastery, A host of justice, to frauds he was an enemy. Whence even of greater goods he himself had been the hope: But God snatches him from undeserved punishments. For when he strives to drive away the hated Commendas, And does not flee to stand for the things of the Church; Against right oppressed and driven by various labors, A grief-bringing languor seizes and weakens him. But he had not yet so presided two full years; While he suffers these evils, at Mechelen he dies: brought back, as I believe, for burial among his own.

[81] As to the Commendas, I have already above alleged the letters of the Magistracy and Citizens of Antwerp to Sixtus IV, The Senate and People of Antwerp deprecate before Sixtus IV, in the year 1477. which in the Chorography page 23 may be read entire, joined with the greatest praises of the Michaelite Monastery; lest their, as they say, chief luminary be extinguished, committed to the Lord Luke of Šibenik, Bishop of Dalmatia, the mitred Nuncio and Orator of His Holiness. There among other things they allege, that, since the care and repair of the walls falls to the Abbot for the time, they judge it not safe enough to be committed to a foreigner. At the same time also from the same letters, given in the year 1477, on the 4th of May, it is understood that this peril was attempted against the Michaelites, the Abbey being vacant through the death of John II: for they ask the Pontiff, that to the Bishop of Šibenik, if his own Bishopric does not suffice, providing more fittingly from elsewhere, and is heard in the year 1480. the holy election of the person of the venerable Father the Lord Andrew de Aechtenryt, a provident and mature man, and according to the long experience which we have of him, they say, of a most commended life, and in all things worthy, canonically made, with the things following thence, he would deign and wish to approve and ratify, or to provide for the monastery anew of his person; and not suffer so notable a member in his Order to be given to plunder and to future desolation. Nor were the prayers in vain, and the expenses of several hundreds:

for the same Sixtus in the year 1480 frees the monastery from the Commenda, the sentence of excommunication being annulled which the same Nuncio, because he was not received, had fulminated, as the manuscript Chronicle indicates was done, and from which there had been justly an appeal. But this fruit the successor reaped as will presently appear.

[82] XXVII John III, by surname Robyns, of Mechelen, in the year 1479, who when he had ruled 8 years, died in the year 1486, on the 17th of July. The verses inscribed on his tomb are reported as these: Buried under this stone, of the Robyns stock, John; A truly good Pastor, born of Mechelen; Terlinck was his uncle Olard the Abbot, Before whose feet now lies, behold, the nephew. He courteous to the Brothers, a good host, a faithful friend: Vanquishing the Commendas he bore savage battles. After evils, while he strives to restore the unjust losses, Alas! too much unforeseen death took the man.

[83] XXVIII John IV, by surname de Weert, a Religious indeed of St. Michael, The Doxale and the new choir-stalls: but then when he was elected Provost of the Nuns of Dulcis-vallis in Walcheren, ruled 12 years and 10 months, and died in the year 1499, on the 18th of May: whose is this Epitaph, the German name Weerdt being rendered into Latin: Here are laid the bones of the venerable host John, Who presided well over this sacred Hospice, Behold he set up the notable work of the Doxale, and with art Carved seats he himself put in the Choir. Daily the sacred rites being performed with inward mind, Watchful he sought the eternal riches. And through him he established by perennial right of the things acquired, That there be always two of the Brothers in Studies. He provided in his life which Pastor should accompany him, While old age hastens and weighs down his weary limbs. For ten months here, for twice ten years he lived: May the dead man live eternally in the Lord. The Doxale and the seats of the Choir the rage of the Iconoclasts overthrew; not likewise the Abbatial House, likewise the House of the Abbot. which I read built by him in part new in the aforementioned writing or supplicatory little book of the year 1635. To this John Pope Alexander VI, on the 10th of the Kalends of January 1493 committed the business of examining and undertaking the foundation of a perpetual Chaplaincy at the high altar in the Hospital of St. John, then situated near the gate of the same name of St. John, now so far destroyed, that only the bridge leading thence to St. Michael's continues to be named from it. But that foundation was established by him in the year 1495, on the 9th of November; which and other similar acts prove, in what place with the Apostolic See the Abbot of St. Michael then was. To the same in the year 1497 the same Alexander gave power, of sending his Religious to the Studies and Universities, as the Chorography has, and the Abbot to that end founded two Bursaries at Louvain, as they call them, which up to now by his successors are conferred at pleasure; Two Religious sent to the Studies. for they are no longer of use to the Religious, who now have domestic Professors of Philosophy and Theology. The Coadjutor, whom he chose for himself living, was, if I am not mistaken, that one, from whom we begin the following Paragraph.

§. XI. The rest of the Abbots in the 16th century, and their glorious Acts.

[84] XXIX James called Elsacker, of 's-Hertogenbosch, who how long he ruled, when he died, is had in his Epitaph, written not in verse but in prose, thus. Here before the memory of the seven sorrows of the Mother of God the Reverend Father James Elsacker, The burning of the tower in the year 1591, Pastor of this Church, awaits the resurrection of his flesh. Who, the morals of the monastery being reformed, after long languors, when he had presided 6 years and 5 months, not yet old, at Averbode dies in the year 1505, on the 28th of September. In his time fell the sad burning of that pyramid, which after the collapse of the year 1244 placed on the repaired tower Martin de Lo-ys. The Registers of the city, communicated to me by the Secretary Valkenisse, say it was struck by lightning in the year 1501 or the following, and assert that the bells melted by the heat of the fire flowed down.

[85] XXX James II, of Antwerp, by surname Embrechts, ruled about nine years, after which he merited an Epitaph, running in Trochaics, badly indeed turned, but clearly explaining what we seek: Here lies James Embrechts, the second of his name, Who to the sacred tower of this church added a peak. A hospitable citizen our city Antwerp mourned, and its restoration. A Prelate and true Father this Church mourned. Then the time of his death is thus indicated: He died in the year 1514, on the 19th of July. Pray for him. To him Julius II in the year 1512 by a diploma given declared, that the Pastors of the parishes constituted from the monastery of St. Michael, are revocable by the Prelate. The peak which he placed on the tower repaired after the fire, had the form of a Liège pear or pear, not much dissimilar to that which now we behold, as was to be seen in the various schematisms of the old city, produced above.

[86] XXXI Stephen a Thenis, of Hoogstraten, ruled that Church 4 years and 3 months, and died in the year 1518, on the 9th of November. He has no memory of burial. Thus the Author of the Chorography. To him Charles, afterward Emperor V, in the year 1517 amortizes, that is declares handed over to the dead hand, all the goods of the monastery, in Brabant, Holland, and Zealand. Of him in the old Antwerp Chronicle, written from the year 1476 up to 1552, and communicated to me by the Canon Charles Snyers of pious memory, it is read thus. The Bishop of Liège, seeking the Abbey for himself In the year 1519 died Stephen Abbot of St. Michael, and Erard de la Marck, Bishop of Liège, strove to intrude himself into the succession: but the Religious, refusing to receive him, elected another: which thing stirred up a great tumult at Antwerp. But that this might be settled, the Brothers consented to receive the Bishop for three or four days; whom with the consent of the Emperor the soon-succeeding elected Abbot should enter into possession; but on this condition, that the monastery should pay the Bishop annually thirty-two thousand florins for life, the Beerschot house being bound in mortgage: and this, is kept off at a great price because Abbot Stephen had come to the court on horseback, with gilded spurs and stirrups. Furthermore on this occasion, that Abbey began to use for a motto, Moderately, which it still uses, under a shield composed of a Cross and four sceptres, perhaps to the number of the Monasteries or Abbeys mentioned above, which proceeded from it as daughters. the motto Moderately, whence born. But by that Motto the Michaelites seem to have wished to teach their Prelates, lest by ostentation of wealth and power they should kindle envy, about to cost them and theirs dear someday. Antony the 32nd Abbot of Tongerlo, a Prelate of the greatest authority at this time even in the Roman Curia, altogether looked to that usurpation of the Bishop of Liège and similar ones, when writing to Rome (as it is in the Tongerlo Chorography) he gravely thundered; Cursed, he says, nomination: which forced me to spend more than three thousand florins (a vast sum of money at that time) which destroyed the Monastery of St. Michael, disordered the one of Middelburg, much burdened the one of Ninove.

[87] The family vander Meeren. XXXII Cornelius de Mera was elected in the year 1519, he himself writes van Mere in a public act of which below, and by it seems to distinguish himself from the family, then of Antwerp of the Knightly order Vander Meren; whence Nicholas from the year 1530, fifth; and John from the year 1571, third Consul. This Abbot in the year 1520 received the Emperor Charles V (to whom then first Antwerp had opened a new Gate, thenceforth to be called Caesarean, the beginning of the works to be drawn round the whole city) with festive apparatus: but what kind, it is difficult to divine from the thirteen Hypotheses, or as many arguments of the spectacles, to be exhibited through the way, which Peter Giles (he was the city's Recorder) sent forth into the light beforehand; for he does not indicate, which of them was at the entrance of the Palace before St. Michael's, nor is there one who can now teach it. But the Emperor came again with Christian King of Denmark in the following year, to lay the first stone of the new work around the Marian choir, of which there still exist the beginnings carried up above the earth to a height of 60 feet; but the ideal plates are said to have been dispersed, in that great mortality of the year 1678. How often thereafter the same Emperor returned for lodging, through the 36 years in which he held the supreme rule of the Christian world, learn from those who described the life and journeys of Charles.

[88] Cornelius died in the year 1538, on the 26th of January. These verses are inscribed on his tomb. The ashes of Cornelius (O death!) by surname Mera, Under this marble are covered. Whom Phoebus had not yet seen for twice ten years Having attained the honor of Prelate. He left monuments of inexhausted praise, with perennial Glory most worthy. By the adverse waves of affairs he was much exercised: But brave he ever persisted. He bestowed wealth on the wretched, while life remained, So that none ever bestowed more liberally. Of such great praises now the due rewards, in Olympus A consort to the blessed, he receives. Among his adversities you may deservedly number, that in the year 1528 on the 10th of March, from the third hour after noon up to the twelfth of the night, the church and its tower burned, a fire arisen through the carelessness of the plumbers, as I read in the manuscript Chronicle of the Canon Snyers. There is found in John Carpentier, in the Proofs of the Cambrai History, a Commissory instrument, in the person of Brother John Boschaert, in the year immediately preceding accepting power, from the Abbot and his other Confreres, to constitute in the year 1527, in the Court of the Archbishop of Cambrai, an emphyteusis, upon a certain portion of land, situated outside the Croneburg gate, between both royal ways from the East and West; but on the South and North, conterminous with other grounds of the same Abbey; which perhaps it will help to note here; for it begins We Cornelis van Mere, humble Prelate of the House of God of St. Michael at Antwerp: for thus spoke our ancestors, and all the Monasteries, even the Abbatial ones, they called Godshuyzen, that is Houses of God.

[89] The grave fire in the year 1528. XXXIII Gregory Tiberii de Hagis (as all the old instruments have) not de Dagis (as wrongly expressed in the Chorography) substituted in the year 1538, on the 1st of February, in the aforecited supplicatory little book is said to have added to that part of the Abbatial house, which John IV had built, the hall, in which the Prince dines; that one I believe, which extended to the West is even now held as the chief, and whose front turned to the Scheldt is flanked with two little towers, still remaining from the older work. Opportunely indeed will Gregory have built that Hall, if he did it before Charles V the Emperor, Philip the new Duke of Brabant received in the year 1549, with Prince Philip, to be inaugurated Duke of Brabant, and Eleonora Queen of the French and Mary Queen of the Hungarians, his sisters, came to Antwerp in the year 1549. For all these to be received at once (if however all had one lodging) the Abbatial buildings could not but be narrow. The matter performed with most solemn pomp, in Latin described Cornelius Grapheus, the city's Secretary, illustrated with wooden figures, by the designer of all the works then, Peter of Aalst, Architect of the sacred Caesarean Majesty, delineated; of which one before St. Michael's, erected to a height of 60 feet, was this. The theater which here above the gate you behold, had the round

figure of the hollow sky, splendid with more than a hundred glass lamps; which at every motion of their spheres were so artfully suspended in revolving, that, the fuel always erect upward and burning, they poured out nothing of oily liquid, or lost any light. In the middle stood the divine Majesty, having the Prince kneeling before Him, and holding out to him the sword received from the hand of Power standing by, then inserting into his right hand the sceptre taken from one of the Angels, and placing on his head the crown offered by another, in the presence of Virtue and Glory, Fame and Immortality, etc., assisting Him. But the whole act these mottoes of sacred Scripture illustrated, written in the border of the theater below and above: above indeed, There is no power but from the Lord: but below, This was done by the Lord, and is wonderful in our eyes. It was the 10th day of September when Antwerp saw that triumphal entrance, itself triumphing; and to St. Michael's its new Duke with that illustrious company led.

[90] In the following 1556 again the same Abbey received Philip, and again in the year 1556 made King, his father abdicating: now King, after his Father had transferred to him his Kingdoms and Provinces, brought from Brussels, that as the great Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece, he might confer it for the first time on new Knights chosen in place of the deceased, as was done at St. Mary's in the month of January. But then he drew here a longer stay, and in the month of March received our Peter Ribadeneira, bringing from the Founder of the Society Ignatius letters, supplicating for it to be established in Belgium. Which business, infinite obstacles being overcome, only on the third day after the Saint's death was brought to the desired end by the King; there followed the erection of new Bishoprics, and upon it the patent letters drawn up, in the same Abbey of St. Michael signed and expedited. There the King received the diploma of Pope Paul IV, given on the 4th of the Ides of May, by which his counsel was approved concerning three Archbishoprics in Belgium, and fifteen new Bishoprics to be instituted; of which three our Brabant was to have; namely the one of Mechelen, to be also Primate of Belgium, and the one of Antwerp and the one of 's-Hertogenbosch. When for these a dowry is sought, the King now having returned to Spain; it pleased his Ministers and himself, to unite and incorporate to them certain Abbeys of Brabant; namely St. Bernard near Antwerp of the Cistercian Order, and Afflighem of the Benedictines, and Tongerlo of the Premonstratensians; together with the assignment and reservation of the immovable goods of the Villers monastery of the Cistercians, and the union with them of the Abbeys or their burdening: up to an annual revenue of a thousand florins; and also of the immovable goods of the monastery of St. Michael up to an annual revenue of a thousand like florins; and that Pope Pius IV might hold it ratified, was obtained.

[91] There exists in Le Mire book 1 of the Belgian Donations chapter 146, a Brief given in the year 1560, on the 5th of the Ides of March, by which to the half of the aforesaid sum the Pontiff consents; for the removal of which an annual revenue of 8000 florins is offered, not likewise that by which he permitted the other half to be added. There exists also with the Michaelites a diploma of King Philip, given at Madrid in 1564, on the 30th of July, by which, the matter being deliberated with his sister the Duchess of Parma, Governess of Belgium, he assents to the supplication presented to him by the Abbots and Prelates of Brabant, representing the first Estate of it, and offering an annual revenue of eight thousand florins, applicable at the King's discretion; and in turn asking that the King deign to promise, that he will act with the Apostolic See and obtain, that the union and incorporation of the aforesaid Abbeys, together with the assignment and reservation of the immovable goods of the Villers and Michaelite Monasteries, made a few years now elapsed, at the instance of his Majesty, for the use of some Bishoprics, but not yet brought into effect, be revoked, as soon as the King has had it annulled, about to attempt nothing such anymore: and in the registers of the Roman Curia be annulled; and to promise for himself and his successors, the Dukes and Duchesses of Brabant, that thenceforth at no time ever, similar nor other incorporations of the said or other Abbeys of Brabant, from the same or other causes ever to come, will be granted, nor will Abbeys of this kind and other monasteries, with any certain sum of money, pension, or annual revenue, or any other diminution of fruits be burdened henceforth, except by the consent of the blessed Prelate and the consent of his Convent. There are added also other cautions, looking to the redeemability of the said eight thousand annual florins, to be constituted, as soon as the King has fulfilled his promises, and has given to the monasteries themselves Abbots from their own bosom, which he promises in the year 1564, but in vain. and to the free election of fit Prelates. But all these counsels and agreements went to the winds, heresy growing strong through Belgium, and the Provinces falling away from the King: which then being brought back to obedience, the people of Tongerlo, as will be said below, by a special Agreement with the Bishop of 's-Hertogenbosch, in the year 1592 redeemed their liberty: but to the Cistercians of St. Bernard at the Scheldt this was first permitted in the year 1636; to the people of Afflighem, not even up to now: but the people of Villers and the Michaelites remain burdened with the pension imposed on them.

[92] I return to their Abbot Gregory, who seems to have spent the last years of his life so weak either in mind or in body, that he was unequal to sustaining the rule by himself; whence even dead he is not found to have had an Epitaph; certainly none is found anywhere. Indications of that calamity I have in the Tongerlo Chorography, where at page 28 I read, that Arnold, the 33rd Abbot of that place, The inglorious end of Abbot Gregory, in the year 1558 with the Abbot of Park betook himself to the monastery of St. Michael of Antwerp, on account of a certain grave business, there to visit and examine the same. Whether by a special commission of the Premonstratensian Abbot, or by the title of Vicar General through the Circary of Brabant and Apostolic Visitor, I indeed know not; but I think the effect of that visitation was the Vicar, given to the same Gregory (for there is no other, A Vicar given him by the Visitors: to whom I might more conveniently ascribe it), namely that very one, to whom afterward dead was fitted the sepulchral stone, once laid for Walter the 6th Abbot as we think: which, the old Epitaph being worn away along the border, now in the ambit of the choir before its northern gate is read inscribed thus: The monument of the Venerable William Verstegen of Oisterwijk, Priest and Canon, and also Vicar of this monastery, who died 1569 on the 27th of September. If it is true what some of the elders say, as if received by the tradition of their forebears, that the monastery suffered great losses in temporals, the Tiberii, brothers or kinsmen of Gregory, administering all things; we shall not difficultly divine, what was the aforenoted grave business, for the examining of which the visitation was decreed. This however proceeded no further than the institution of a Vicar: for the title and right of Abbot Gregory always retained; which is proven even from that window, which in St. Andrew's, not so long ago renewed, his last memory in a window of the year 1561, bears this title: Abbot of St. Michael Gregory made me, in the year 1561; his successor Macarius Simeomo repaired it, in the year 1671. Would that someone had striven to preserve the old painting on paper, perhaps about to teach more. Furthermore the same Gregory died on the Nones of June in the evening, between the ninth and tenth hour, by the Chorographer's testimony, in the year 1562.

[93] XXXIV Cornelius II, called Emerici, succeeded in the same year in which Gregory died 1562, extending up to Easter, on the 24th of January; after the Abbey had been vacant 7 months, 20 days. He ruled one year and five weeks, and died in the morning immediately after the third hour on the first Sunday of Lent, 1563. We now would number the year 64. For, as Le Mire notes in the Belgian Chronicle at the year 1576, in this very year 1576, according to the Royal edict, published the preceding December, the beginning of the year began to be drawn from the Kalends of January, whereas before among the Brabanters it was numbered from the day of Easter. The year begins from Easter for the Brabanters up to the year 1576: But this is diligently to be observed, for the right use and understanding of the Acts, published in the months of January, February, March, and April among us: and by the lack of this observation it happened to the Author of the Chorography, to combine the death of Cornelius II, which had fallen on the first Sunday of Lent, with the 26th of February, on which that Sunday had really fallen in our year now 1563, in which Easter was to be celebrated on the 11th of April. But in the following year, then still to the Brabanters 63, to be changed into 64 only with Easter, which was to be on the 2nd of April; that Sunday, on account of the concurrence of the Bissextile, fell on the 20th of February: which was the true death-day of Cornelius: after whose death the Abbey was vacant about half a year.

[94] XXXV William IV, called Greve, succeeded in the year 1564, and the summer chamber of the Abbot. about the 19th day of September. To him Pius V in the year 1568 gave the faculty of blessing all ecclesiastical ornaments. He, according to the supplicatory little book aforecited, built the summer chamber of the Abbot: now turned into the uses of the Governor; to which afterward Chrysostom the Abbot added, the Oratory of the Holy Spirit, otherwise of the Divine Love; and finished that fabric, which to this day runs to the south. But William, according to the Chorography, ruled 17 years, and died 1581, on the 16th of September. He sustained that deadly storm of the Iconoclasts in the year 1566: the Iconoclasts endured in the year 1566. and the state of Belgium being most disturbed, in the whole six years received no successor. It is credible however, that the church polluted by the heretics was reconciled in the year next following, by the Suffragan of the Archbishop of Cambrai the Lord Martin de Cuyper a Carmelite, the same who on the 20th of May consecrated the new altars of the Marian Basilica. Besides other inconveniences this too happened, the Abbey being vacant, that Francis Hercules Duke of Alençon, by the action of Orange received by the States of Brabant as Duke, and wishing to keep the first Nativity of the Lord as solemnly as possible at Antwerp in the year 1582, had the house bereft of a parent, and empty, the Religious being dispersed, occupied wholly for his own and his people's uses, even the Refectory and Kitchen, which up to that very day (as the aforementioned little book notes) the Religious had never yielded: The monastery occupied by Alençon, but to the hall and chambers placed above the Refectory, and first built for the use of the Library, the Princes ascended by ample stairs, of which now closed the shaft, rising between the Parlour and the Refectory, still is seen in the Parlour, but the little door bolted is seen in the frontispiece, not far from the gate of the Parlour and Convent. Hence therefore it came about, that the Religious returning by right of postliminy in a very small number, began (as I said) to use the smaller refectory. Under the same Abbot our Antwerp, immediately subject to the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Cambrai, received in the year 1570 its own Bishop, to be the Suffragan of the new Archbishop of Mechelen: and so the Michaelites ceased to have recourse to the Cambrai Court, when there was need. In the seventh year after this, of Christ 1577 on the 4th of November, from the citadel into the city rushed the plundering Spaniards; and carrying off whatever remained in the Abbey of sacred or profane furniture, left it most despoiled.

[95] The Abbey is vacant for six years. XXXVI Emmeric Andreae, first in the year

1587, after the city was brought back by Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma and Piacenza, two years before to the obedience of his King, the monastery long desolate, granted as Abbot, ruled two years and eight months; after which buried before the choir, beside the altar of the Blessed Virgin, he received this Epitaph from his successor. Here lies buried the Lord Emeric Andreae, Abbot of this monastery, who died in the year 1590, on the 31st of August. Pray for him. Much labor no doubt was his in patching the roofs, and repairing the monastic workshops, of which a good part to have failed, none caring, the Iconisms prove, taken from the plates of his time, and besides the temple and cloister, built with firmer work, and part of the Abbatial buildings, retaining elsewhere only rare buildings.

[96] XXXVII Dionysius Feyten, from Pastor in Minderhout, Provost of Dulcis-vallis, then Administrator of the Abbey of St. Michael, finally made Abbot and consecrated as Abbot in the year 1592. The Jesuits employed in aid. To this one was no less labor than to his predecessor, in repairing those things which had fallen away. But seeing that he had at home rare Religious and little exercised, the elder and more learned being drawn off through the forensic Parishes incorporated to the Abbey; he gladly used the ready service of our Society, for holding sermons in his church on Sundays and feast-days, and instructing in Christian doctrine the youth of the surrounding neighborhood: which service then rendered to it by it the most religious assembly of the Michaelite Canons, long not needing foreign aid, still gratefully commemorates.

[97] About the same time, namely in the year 1594, on the 18th of the Kalends of July, having entered our city, took lodging at St. Michael's, Ernest Archduke of Austria, son of Maximilian II the Emperor, Ernest Archduke of Austria received: to be Governor of Belgium. The order of the engines and spectacles prepared for him described and published, the same who described Philip's, John Bochius. From the Mint there led in a double row an extempore portico, extended up to the Abbey to a length of a thousand feet. The piers, a hundred and fifty-two in number, on both sides were so arranged, that to each was left an interval of twelve feet, the height eminent fifteen feet, the portico itself lying open thirty-five feet, the first gable rising to as many feet: to which at the end of the triumphal way another gable rose even higher, between two trophies compacted of maritime and terrestrial spoils, with this motto above: Behold, great one of Leaders, the trophies of land and sea, Worthy of thy deeds; to which palm thee the Belgic Fates and prayers call: may God prosper thy undertakings. The authors of the work, on the first front at the Mint, professed their names by this inscription, To Ernest the Austrian, a Prince renowned in virtue and arms, congratulating the undertaken rule of Lower Germany and his arrival, Mark, John, and James, the Fugger brothers, Barons of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn, took care to have a temporary portico built.

[98] But this joy was brief: there died in the year immediately following on the 10th of the Kalends of March at Brussels Ernest, and to him by the designation of Philip soon succeeded, from Lusitania which he had administered as Viceroy, Albert Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, kinsman of King Philip on the side of his uncle the Emperor Ferdinand, undertaking Belgium to be governed for his kinsman. Then certain royal ministers wished it to be persuaded to Richardot the President of the Council of State, Before Albert the Cardinal Governor the liberty of the Abbey is defended: that the Abbey of St. Michael of Antwerp pertained to the right of the Prince as founder: wherefore Dionysius the Prelate sent to Brussels Aubert le Mire, then Canon at St. Mary's, afterward Dean, as being skilled in the tongue, with authentic documents, whence it was established, that the whole present monastery, as much as it is, was built by its Abbots: which thing the aforesaid Lord Cardinal most gladly understood, and declared himself fully satisfied, as the same Le Mire, still surviving, can attest, says the Author of the supplicatory little book, in the year (as I said) 1635 offered.

[99] With even gladder minds the same Albert was received to lodging, when in the penultimate year of the 16th century on the 8th day of December, together with the wife brought from Spain and betrothed to him, Isabella Clara Eugenia, he was conveyed into Antwerp with most solemn pomp; the same now Prince of Belgium received with Isabella, after the oaths of the dowry-Provinces received elsewhere, to be inaugurated among us Marquis of the Holy Roman Empire. On this matter a notable book John Bochius, Secretary to the Senate and People of Antwerp, wrote. In it is seen the idea of the material work, erected at the entrance of the Michaelite Palace. It stood sixty feet high, thirty-five broad, destined to the Memory of the lately deceased King Philip, as the last act of the whole pomp. Here in the middle of the second elevation he himself sitting on a throne, with Pallas at the right, an arch erected at the monastery in memory of King Philip, at the left the Fates standing by, divided the whole of all his kingdoms, distinguished into spheres of the terrestrial globe, in this manner: two-thirds he assigned to Philip III with a sceptre, the remaining third to his daughter Isabella. The right intercolumniation contained the Empire of the World painted, in the form of a virgin, her head wreathed in place of a garland with the seven planets. The garment covering her breast (which the Zodiac obliquely surrounded) was sky-blue, like clouds; another let down to the knees, wave-colored and billowy; on a third, down to the feet, mountains, cities, and citadels were painted; the right hand held a sceptre, the left a naval rudder: there was written at her head, TO THE HEIRS OF THE EMPIRE OF THE WORLD. At the left Glory, with wings and trumpet, Cupid standing by; and above the head it was read, To the eternal glory of Philip. The third substructure explained the meaning of the work in these verses. As greatest in kingdoms, so also in piety, Philip, The begetter divides among his children the worlds, which he had ruled. Hence he seeks the Ethereal seats; and the labors of men He relieves with assiduous prayers, the Deity being appeased; And consoles his own, and absent provides for the world.

[100] The statue placed on the topmost acroterion, was the type of Providence, the acroteria of the same arch explained. standing upon the globe of the world, and holding a spear-shaft with a sceptre: but the other figures, placed on the remaining acroteria, were these; Piety, Felicity, Fortitude, Liberality, Power, Magnanimity, Majesty, and Clemency. On the oblong plates above the little doors, fixed on the intercolumniation on both sides, these inscriptions detained the Reader. Alas! how much to be lamented it is, that since the Commonwealth is immortal, it should consist in the soul of one mortal: for Philip lived enough for nature and glory, but for the world too little. The eulogy of the left side was of this kind: Since by the example of Menander, King of the Bactrians, we cannot soothe the longing for Philip (to whom among the good Princes from the founding of the world we set none before, we compare few) by ashes divided among the several cities: yet by images of the best Prince erected publicly and privately, which all the cities of Greece performed to the Emperor Hadrian, we shall venerate and worship his sacrosanct memory. These things, however elegant for that time, it will help to compare with the idea of that arch, which thirty-six years after this stood there, the Prince Cardinal Ferdinand entering our city and the Abbey; and thence it can be estimated, how much the arts and letters in so brief a space profited among us, after the Society opened here its school. That I might not also give its form to be seen here, the unskillfulness of the sculptor caused, everywhere betraying itself and erring from the architectonic rules; which it did not please more laboriously to correct, in a thing not singularly elegant.

[101] The death and epitaph of Abbot Dionysius. I return to Dionysius II, surviving still twelve years; and what through the whole time of his rule he did and endured I set to be read in his Epitaph, which his successor wrote for him thus.

TO GOD THE BEST AND GREATEST,

DIONYSIUS FEYTEN,

to whom the Grudii, the other Athens, was his fatherland; of candor of soul in his most white Canonical family himself a candid fashioner and favorer: strenuous in various offices for 42 years, likewise by the unsound factions of the heretics according to circumstance a poor exile of Christ, or a rich Prelate, I would say. He, I say, a Jubilarian of Profession and Priesthood, grave in age and morals, carried off by a mournful death, in sure hope of resurrection, here awaits the last day. That it may be well with him, do thou pray. But on the stone of the sarcophagus it is read that he died in the year 1612, on the Ides of September, when he had ruled 19 years, 6 months, 12 days; had lived 75 years, 5 months, 6 days.

§. XII. The Abbots of the 17th century, for whom the Author wishes a long series of successors.

[102] XXXVIII Christian Michaelius, created Abbot on the 28th of February 1613, is said in his Epitaph to have lived 33 years, ruled one and 5 days, died at Brussels in the year 1614, on the 3rd of the Nones of March.

[103] XXXIX Matthew Irselius, driven by the heretics from the Norbertine monastery of Middelburg, by various troubles and prisons proved like gold, from Archpriest of the district of Hoogstraten and Breda, was created Abbot on the 17th of May, in the year 1614, in the 72nd year of his age. In the 6th year of this Abbot, of Christ 1620, again by a deadly fire there burned the whole monastery with the church, the 3rd fire in the year 1620 when no aid from waters could be brought, through the most bitter frost, which had bound even the Scheldt itself; as in part I remember to have often heard, a boy, being myself born in the eighth year after that fire. But so then raged the flame, that it consumed even the very stones, crowning in the ancient manner the topmost gables of the cloister ambit; and there was need with new (which easily appears) work to raise again a good part of it, chiefly to the South, where it is connected to the Refectory. So great a loss however Matthew the Abbot quickly repaired, with incredible (as the supplicatory Little book asserts) expense, helped by no aid either from the Court, or from any other. But at last he too died in the year 1629, on the 15th of July, when he had presided 16 years, of his age 88, and had adorned the temple with various works; as is read in his Epitaph, which it has of marble and inscribed with golden letters, on the left side of the choir beside the high altar, toward the ambit, which altar erected by him I praised above at number 145. He has nonetheless at the horn of the same altar, which they call of the Gospel, a sepulchral stone of white marble, on which living he wished only this to be inscribed. To God the Best and Greatest, Matthew Irselius, here I await, until my change come. But his effigy, painted by the hand of Rubens, hangs at the nearest column which sustains the vault of the choir. It is to be noted however that what the former Epitaph has, that Matthew presided 16 years, cannot be understood of full ones: since from the aforesent note of time concerning his creation and death it is gathered, that he presided only 15 years, 1 month, 18 days.

[104] XL John Chrysostom van der Sterre of 's-Hertogenbosch, The new Chapel of the Abbey, created in the same year in which his predecessor died, consecrated on the 7th of October, through the 23 years of his rule, in manifold ways adorned the Church and Abbey. In the first and principal hall of this Abbey he both had all his predecessors painted, and on a larger plate also himself, but in the person of Blessed Waltmann, receiving the Crozier with the Abbatial blessing from the hand of St. Norbert before the altar, at which the holy Archbishop in the habit of one sacrificing assists. His work too is the Abbatial Chapel, named of the divine Love, than which

scarcely anything more elegant can be beheld; so wholly with gold, the Propylaeum and the houses adorned, toward the public way. paintings, and statues is it adorned and shines. Nor would I pass over the Propylaeum, from the design of Rubens, and of white and blue stone, set before that area, which lies between the royal way and the church to the East, as I said; with new buildings on both sides arranged in beautiful order, for the convenience of citizens, choosing to live there farther from the urban noise; which however are not yet all held perfected, but here and there only four each, the rest being reserved for more convenient times, together with the new gate to the Abbey. Chrysostom's work too is the Doxale or marble Odeum, above which is seen the noble statue of Christ, under the guise of the good shepherd, carrying the recovered sheep, the Doxale restored. flanked by the statues of SS. Peter and Paul the Apostles, to whom through the columns of the middle nave the rest almost of the Apostles correspond, arranged by the private liberality of several, for cenotaphs which they wished erected to the memory of themselves and their own, to be buried there.

[105] The Prince Cardinal Ferdinand received in the year 1635, Into the time of this most happy Abbot fell that, memorable to all ages among the Belgians, arrival of Ferdinand the Prince Cardinal, about to govern the Belgians for his brother King Philip IV; who, lest he should at once visit Antwerp, was detained by repelling the attempts of the Gauls threatening the Belgians after the Nordlingen victory over the Swedes, and only in the month of April of the year 1635 arrived there. He from the Castle where he had passed the night, carried into the city through the Caesarean gate, by a long circuit through triumphal arches and spectacles arranged in each of the more frequented places, was at last led to St. Michael's, and received by Chrysostom the Abbot, the arch of Hercules of Prodicus being beheld which intersected the way leading toward the Castle, such as both there and in the other places the happy genius of the painter Rubens had arranged, and the ingenuity of the Archgrammarian Gevartius had illustrated with mottoes and epigraphs; as the one engraved in bronze this little plate sets forth. The same in these words the published book explains.

[106] an arch of Hercules of Prodicus erected for him, In the middle plate Hercules a youth is seen, deliberating on the manner of instituting his life, clad in the lion's skin, holding a club in his right hand. There stands by Venus, who with smiling countenance strives to entice him, and to seduce him to the way of pleasure. Father Liber too, wreathed with vine-shoot, and showing a little crown of flowers, invites him to himself. Cupid in the middle, the garment and club of Hercules seized, strives to draw him resisting to himself. But he himself, having obeyed the counsels of Pallas armed standing by him, the blandishments of delights being spurned, spiritedly strives toward the temples of Honor and Virtue, placed on a high rock. The way a winged dragon and other almost beasts beset. The epigraph: The arduous path of virtue by a stony slope Is trodden, Ferdinand, by thee: ill-persuading pleasure Is driven off by the auspices and leadership of the divine Minerva. Thou art happy, the Goddess accompanying. So one goes to the stars. Hence to thee the renown which hangs from the lofty temple, And not unequal to the Herculean labor, awaits. Hence too on the gable of the arch, on a border surrounding laurel and palm crossed, was written, Through the steep, glory goes its arduous way.

[107] The latter part of this arch was plainly of the same architecture with the former, and contained the same ornamental additions. and of Bellerophon. In the middle plate (which here separately to exhibit we did not judge necessary) Bellerophon armed, who carried through the air by the winged horse Pegasus, kills the Chimaera, the spear driven into its breast. That monster, representing in the first part a lion, in the tail a dragon, but in the middle a goat, vomited huge flames from its mouth, and killed whatever was nearest by its deadly breath. There lie the bones of the corpses devoured by the monster. The epigraph. Deluded by the windings of the Wing-bearer, and pierced by the point, As the Chimaera fell under the great Bellerophon; Not otherwise by the invincible strength of Ferdinand, the dire Rage of heresy will fall, and Concord fallen from heaven Will at last join the Belgians unanimous. On the gable under the palm the epigraph, For itself virtue opens a way through the clouds.

[108] The death of Abbot Chrysostom in the year 1652: What Abbot Chrysostom did for promoting the honor of his holy Patriarch, by the translation of the sacred body into the dominions of the Catholics, the proper Treatise on that matter already set forth has explained: but before this very thing was attempted, when he was still only Prior of the monastery under Abbot Matthew, in the year 1622 he had the whole Life of the same Saint engraved with the elegant graver of Theodore Galle on 24 bronze plates, a suitable synopsis of the history there represented being subjoined to each. books written and published, But that the use of these figures might extend more widely, he fitted to them a good large book in the vernacular tongue of the Belgians, on the same subject, which two years after he published; as also two years after, but in the Latin tongue, the Nativities of the Premonstratensian Saints. But in the last time of his Abbatial rule he had printed, what reprinted we have given, the old Life of St. Norbert: but to add to the same Life the Annotations death intercepted, nor however hindered the publication of the book; the place of the deceased being supplied by the Lord Cornelius Polycarp de Hertoghe, and the copious and learned Notes being perfected. Furthermore the same Chrysostom was (as is read in his Epitaph) of his Premonstratensian Order, his burial, through the Circaries of Brabant and Frisia Vicar general and Apostolic Visitor; and in the year 1652 having piously died, lies buried beside the high altar, opposite his predecessor at the horn of the Epistle, under a like marble; where he has the aforecited Epitaph, placed on the same side of the choir by his successor, opposite that which he himself had placed for his predecessor: he has also there likewise an effigy hanging from a column, most devoutly painted, just as living he had breathed piety with his whole countenance.

[109] XLI Norbert van Couwerven, of Antwerp, after he had in this city for more than 25 years preached the word of God with a frequent concourse, A Panegyric in the year 1656 on St. Ignatius, from time to time also Prior of the monastery; was instituted Abbot, in the same year in which his predecessor died, on the 21st of December; nor however ceasing from his accustomed office of preaching, in the year 1656 on the 31st of July, in the Church of the Professed House of the Society of Jesus, where then was celebrated the hundredth year from the death of St. Ignatius our Father; him, and the accustomed exercises of his sons concerning their neighbor in this city, he praised in that panegyrical Oration, which long was in the memory of the citizens and still is in the hands of many, published in Plantin's press, and by a most crowded assembly so eagerly heard, that although it was protracted two whole hours; yet no one was wearied by hearing the praises of those, the memory of whom now dead still flourished among most, while the theme taken from Ecclesiasticus he follows out with his sweet eloquence: His father is dead, and as if he were not dead, for he left behind him one like himself.

[110] The same, for laying up the Relics of St. Norbert, namely half of his brain, The silver ark of St. Norbert received in the year 1654, caused to be made that silver ark of great price nor of less mass, which above we have exhibited expressed in bronze: for which ark more honorably to be placed, in the wall of the Norbertine Chapel hollowed out, he built a marble little place in the sixth year after, where it should stand conspicuous to the people, as often as the gilded doors were opened. The same behind the high altar adorned the chapel of the Mother of God with marbles. The same Norbert in the year 1655 (as is read in the Chorography) when he had caused the greater bell of St. Michael to be recast and reduced to a better tone, and had 31 others added, which are of such good resonance and harmony, that with any other bell-work through all Belgium they can compete, but the weight of all runs out to 14,627 pounds. The same fitted to the conveniences of the Religious that great and spacious hall, which after the fire had been raised between the Dormitory and the Abbey, but had scarcely any other use than for receiving the Princes and Governors of Belgium, The play of the bells, if ever they came hither, and joined it to the Dormitory; and the substructure beneath it, in which the attendants of the same Princes were wont to have their station, he made to be the Refectory as it had been before, indeed very convenient and magnificent. He preferred indeed, the Princes being present, for a while to dwell less conveniently, and to yield his chambers to the guests; The Refectory transferred. than that his subjects, so far from their cells as they then were, for taking refection, should daily walk, into that Northern hall, beside which they had had their dwelling, before it was transferred across the church to the southern side.

[111] The Norbertine Nuns also, part of whom, The Monastery of the Holy Sacrament. Breda being taken by the Confederates, having departed to Oosterhout fleeing hither his predecessor had received in the year 1654; an agreement being entered with the Provost of the Holy Trinity in the valley of St. Catharine of Oosterhout, Norbert took into his right in the year 1664; and aided toward a new monastery, under the name of the Most Holy Sacrament, to be founded here at Antwerp, the most ample buildings of the Fuggers being bought for it: on which matter there exist in the last chapter of the oft-cited Chorography the letters both of the General Premonstratensian Augustine le Schellier, and of the Antwerp Bishop Ambrose Capello. But the Abbot fortified with these, instituted for the same monastery the first Prioress elected by the common votes of the Virgins, Catharine Snyers. But the Lord Norbert died in the year 1661, on the 9th of September, having deserved by his notable affection toward this work of the Acts of the Saints, that four years before death he saw one part of February inscribed to his name by the Authors, John Bolland and Godfrey Henschen. For laying down his body the place chosen was at the foot of the high altar, where also his successors chose burial for themselves, on the right Macarius, on the left Chrysostom, of whom below.

[112] XLII Macarius Simeomo, of Antwerp, is believed, The Relics of Blessed Hermann Joseph. when he was still a private man, to have collected the oft-praised Choro- or Cenobiography of St. Michael, and to have handed it to Sanderus to be adopted in the year 1659. But instituted Abbot in the year 1662, he excellently promoted his predecessor's undertakings in both monasteries. And among his own indeed the altar of St. Gregory or of the venerable Sacrament, of white and black marble highly erected, he furnished also with marble rails and a sacristy built beside it; but to the holy Virgins he procured as special Patron Blessed Hermann Joseph, of whom we treated on the 7th of April; a notable Relic being divided with them, already from the year 1622 donated by the Abbot of Steinfeld; whose first exposition was solemnly celebrated in the year 1673 on the 11th of September: but the other part at St. Michael's he exposed, in that chapel which we said before was dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, then to St. Lidwina Virgin of Schiedam. He had begun in the preceding year to adorn the Refectory of the Religious, with those paintings which above we praised; but it was a matter of longer effort, than that the most celebrated painter could finish it within a few years: it was therefore, he being dead, a thing for two successors to attend to. His work too was the new from the foundations and beautiful Brewery, a new brewery erected. in that place where had been a wood-storehouse, vile and rustic, and offending not a little the eyes of those approaching the Abbey: which done, provision was also made for the quiet of the monastery, through which the foreign brewers and their servants had to run about, while the work of brewing beer was carried on, in the outermost houses to the North,

now diverted to other quieter uses.

[113] But since it is necessary for the Abbots of St. Michael, by reason of the General Council of the States of Brabant, A lodging at Brussels, of which they are a member, often to stay at Brussels, especially if ever they are chosen into the number of the Deputies for the part of the Clergy, as he himself was; for himself and his successors in that Royal city, beside the monastery of the Capuchin nuns, he caused to be built a Lodging convenient and magnificent, such as you here behold. The Beerschot house too, situated in a most convenient and most healthful place, which his predecessor, for the religious recreation of his own, had restored, such as I have given to be seen in the larger plate of the whole Abbey, he began to adorn with magnificent gardens, and orchards, and fishponds drawn round it: and on that occasion was cast down the gate which there at the head of the bridge was before seen. He it was (which it is fitting be gratefully commemorated by me) who not only had our Acts of the Saints hitherto printed, his affection toward the Acts of the Saints. and read them frequently; but wished also to be brought to him each of the chief Commentaries prepared for the press, thinking it slow to await them until they were had printed: and by the title of counsel as well as aid, lovingly and diligently contributed to that work, you will find dedicated to him, in the years 1667 and 1675, the last volumes of March and April. Intent on such things, and most desirous of seeing May brought to the press, in only the sixtieth year of his age, the fourteenth of his Prelacy, of Christ 1676, on the 12th of April death seized and snatched him from us. Living he set up a monument for himself at that column of the choir which faces the horn of the Gospel; on which indeed he permitted the half figure of his body to be placed; but no other Epitaph would he have, than this dictated by himself. TO GOD THE BEST AND GREATEST AND HOLIEST. What was mortal, here wished to be laid Brother Macarius the Abbot. Pray for him, that quickly to the sight of God, and thence to blessed eternity he may pass.

[114] XLIII Hermann Joseph vander Porten or a Porta, of 's-Hertogenbosch, from Provost of our Norbertine Nuns, made Abbot in the year 1677, on the 11th of January, The beatification of the Martyrs of Gorcum notably amplified the fabric of the nunnery beloved by him by the addition of buildings constructed from the ground; the Beatification of the Martyrs of Gorcum, in the year 1572 on the 9th of July slain by the Calvinists at Brielle in Holland, in the 104th year after their passion performed by Clement X, he most magnificently celebrated at Antwerp, in the year 1677 on the first Sunday of Lent, by reason of two of the White Order, James and Adrian, suffering among them. The chambers of his Abbey, less conveniently, nor to the genius of this age elegantly enough arranged, the doors being differently disposed, he so reformed and adorned, that they are now fit for explicating the courtly service of any Prince whatever, yet leave to the Abbot the faculty of remaining in those which he has fitted for his own private person. The Abbey adorned, Living he had set up a monument for himself, like the monument of his predecessor Macarius, at the horn of the Gospel; and in the same tomb to which Chrysostom likewise his predecessor was brought, he has no proper epitaph, having died in the year 1681, on the 19th day of July.

[115] XLIV Gerard Knyf of Antwerp, ordained in 1682, on the 3rd of March, the damages of floods repaired, while he strives to restore the great losses of temporal substance, brought by inundations of waters, the Scheldt overflowing and breaking through the dikes near Antwerp; succumbed to cares and labors on the 21st of January in the year 1687, buried under his proper marble, which before the altar living he had prepared for himself, inscribed with these words:

TO GOD THE BEST AND GREATEST AND HOLIEST.

Gerard the Abbot, here in darkness I have spread my couch, and my substance in the lower parts of the earth: that the eyes of the Lord may not see my imperfect work, but that to the work of His hands He may quickly stretch forth His right hand, pray; and render these gifts to our ashes.

[116] XLV John Chrysostom Teniers, of Antwerp, received the Abbatial benediction in the year 1687, on the 19th of May, the second weekday of Pentecost. He meditates very many things, for the convenience and splendor of his Abbey; for bringing which to work may God grant a long life and convenient times; The wish of the Writer D. P. until full of days and merits He receive him to Himself, into the lot of the Saints, to promoting whose honor he has striven, and whose virtues he has endeavored to imitate: but then may a long series of successors suffice; through whom the things long ago well begun by St. Norbert, and gradually advanced by posterity to their present amplitude; with splendor continued more and more, up to the end of the ages, may endure with indefectible vigor.

COROLLARY III.

On the three Filial Abbeys, sprung from the Antwerp Michaelite Abbey.

Norbert, Founder of the Premonstratensian Order, and Archbishop of Magdeburg (St.)

BY D. P.

The History of our Michaelite Abbey being run through, I had resolved to put an end to the Norbertine Corollaries; The causes of this Corollary. when it seemed worth the effort to compose a little Treatise on its Daughters (so they call the Monasteries, drawn from another as from a matrix) under the title of the third Corollary. For although the Chorographies of the Abbeys of Averbode and Tongerlo exist, in the compilation of the chief monasteries of Brabant, begun by Sanderus and published under his name; yet that volume is not everywhere at hand, and outside Belgium scarcely known to any. But of the Abbey of Middelburg, once most excellent, now under the Confederate States suppressed, an altogether slender memory exists in the Chronicles of our and the previous age: and yet there was offered a vast treasure of old monuments, whence it could at least be revived in the knowledge of men. And so this Corollary too is added to the other two, promised in the prefatory Commentary.

§. I. On the beginnings of the Abbey of Averbode.

[1] The same year 1128, which created for the Antwerp Church of St. Michael as Abbot Blessed Waltmann, is thought to have made the same the Father Abbot of the Church of Averbode; so much had Norbert's planting grown up within one three-year period. Averbode is situated in Taxandria, at the confines of the territory of Diest and Zichem, distant an hour's league on one side from the Steep Hill of the Holy Virgin, [At the beginning of the 12th century Averbode, grows famous by the miracles of the Mother of God:] on the other from Tessenderlo, but from Antwerp about ten. But it is situated in a healthful climate, although in a woody soil; but up to those times empty of all but the filth of robbers or brigands, their rapines and homicides, as says Stephen, Archbishop of Metz, to be praised below. But the Mother of God, wishing it her own, first began to illustrate there her image, fixed to a tree by I know not what hand, with miracles; and when the faithful, drawn by that enticement, ran thither, peril despised; it happened that Arnold III Count of Loos came thither too, thither by Arnold Count of Loos. and pouring out prayers was divinely freed from manifest peril of life. He therefore conceived the purpose, of consecrating that place of his right to the Mother of God, and of joining a convent of Religious who should serve her. But since the new institution of the Premonstratensians at Antwerp was celebrated through all Brabant, he judged that Order especially fit for his purpose.

[2] There was demanded and immediately sent by Waltmann Andrew, with his Companions, Arnulph, Louis, Hugo, in the year 1124 Andrew sent with 4 companions. and Nolen, who in the Necrology of the place are called the first Founders. Therefore, says the Chorography, the monastery of St. Michael of Antwerp, is the mother of Averbode; whose this firstborn daughter, calls the Abbot, by the custom of the Order, Father Abbot. How many years those four first, under Andrew the Provost, spent in fitting the place for the course of Canonical profession and office, in building the church, constituting a dowry, instructing and cultivating the neighborhood, about the year 1135 aggregating new Companions; until Averbode merited the title and dignity of an Abbey, I do not find noted: a whole eight-year period certainly elapsed, before the aforesaid Arnold expedited the letters of foundation, which signed in the year 1135 mention Chapeauville, in the Notes to the Chronicle of the people of Liège of Giles of Orval chapter 26, and Le Mire in the Codex of Donations chapter 91; but the Author of the Chorography produces them entire. The cause of the delay was; that the assent had to be obtained of several, having a part in the allod of Averbode, whose names Alexander Bishop of Liège, by this his authentic testimony, expresses.

[3] I Alexander, the divine Clemency ordaining, humble keeper and provisor of the Lord's Flock in the Bishopric of Liège, obtains full possession of the place; make known, and by the impression of our seal hand it over to be held in memory, both to posterity following and to the cultivators of the Catholic faith of our time; that namely Count Arnulf of Loos, with the assent of the other Noble participants, namely, Arnulf of Aarschot, Arnulf of Diest, Cuno of Repe, and Radulf Abbot of St. Trudo, the Allod, which is named Averbode, to the praise and honor of Christ, gave to those wishing to serve the Lord there, for the salvation of his soul and of his fathers… But this in our days was established with me as witness, with the consent of all having a part in it, in my presence, in the times of the Emperor Lothair: which since he was first made Emperor the crown being received at Rome in the year 1133, on the 6th of July, that writing cannot have been earlier, nor is it absurdly deferred to the following year: in which meanwhile I would believe the church was finished, and consecrated to the Mother of God and to John the Baptist.

[4] the Count himself handing it over; The very charter of the Foundation has this beginning: In the name of the Holy and undivided Trinity. We judge it worthy, that we ought to cherish the faithful servants of Christ, and out of our abundance to meet their necessities, and to relieve their want; that when we shall fail they may receive us into the eternal tabernacles. Hence it is that I Arnold, by the grace of God called Count of Loos, with Louis my son, founded the church of holy Mary and of Saint John the Baptist at Averbode, our allod, and in it placed Canons of the Premonstratensian Order under the Rule of Blessed Augustine: to whom all the land with the woods from the boundary Endeberghe, up to the boundary which is called Ubrepath, with the surrounding pastures, we freely granted; the Church also of Tessenderlo, with the tithes and appendages, and with all the uses of the same village, namely waters and pastures, The donation as to the part of St. Trudo we bestowed on the aforesaid Brothers. But since in the allod donated the church of St. Trudo had some portion, and over this some right I know not what the Bishop of Metz had or pretended; it did not seem enough for its alienation that it should be done, with the consent of Radulf the Abbot of that Church and his Brothers, unless the consent of the said Bishop acceded; whom also being asked to yield, in the year of the incarnate Word 1136, Indiction 14, Stephen, by divine mercy Bishop of Metz, to all both future and present in perpetuity, thus wrote:

[5] Since according to the Apostle we are admonished to work good to all and are debtors; in the year 1136 Alexander Bishop of Metz confirms, especially to those we by no means doubt that the care of beneficence is to be expended, who, the shipwreck of the fluctuating present world being left, have happily betaken themselves to the tranquil port of contemplation, and in it have fixed the anchor of their salvation. Therefore for the remedy of our sins, or of all our predecessors or successors, and no less at the petition of Gerard the Venerable Cardinal of the Holy Cross, then also Legate of the Apostolic See; the land which is called Averbode,… to the Church of St. John the Baptist, which is there founded, to be freely possessed we have handed over; with this tenor indeed, that to the Church of St. Trudo in single years on the Epiphany of the Lord, a golden coin or

its price, the Brothers of the Church of St. John the Baptist above mentioned should pay. To this our handing-over gave their assent the Advocates of the aforesaid Church of St. Trudo, Waleram Duke and Marquis of Lorraine, and Giselbert de Durac. From which I learn, that the Foundation was really begun in the year 1128, in which Gerard the Cardinal, afterward Pope Lucius II, had been present at the assembly of Speyer, and had confirmed Norbert's election to the Archbishopric; who when thereafter he discharged his legation, and had come to Metz, after the first Abbots ordered to be ordained by Norbert, also began to be the author to Alexander of approving the Averbode foundation. I learn besides, that the Titular Patron of the Averbode church, commonly and more usually held from the beginning, was St. John the Baptist; whence in the emblem-shield of the Abbey only the Lamb of God is represented; yet to the Marian honor it was for the most part given, that from the title of the former chapel, before the more capacious church was built, it should be called of St. Mary, or with the addition, and of St. John the Baptist: whose joint also up to this day preserved, brought thither from Palestine, Count Gerard, the grandson of the Founder Arnold by his son Louis.

[6] But not yet when these things were written did the Brothers have their own Abbot, About the year 1139 Andrew made Abbot, but were immediately subject to the Antwerp Abbot: until they too multiplied in number, and having attained full possession of the place, obtained the same about the year 1139. For this is gathered from the Pontifical Bull, given on the 16th of the Kalends of May, Indiction 2, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1139, in the tenth year of the Pontificate of Lord Pope Innocent II. The tenor of the Bull was this: Innocent the Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, to his beloved son Andrew Abbot of St. Mary, situated at Averbode, obtains from Innocent II and to thy successors canonically to be substituted in perpetuity. The effect of a pious will must be carried out by the pursuing deed; insofar as the sincerity of devotion may laudably shine forth, and the requested utility may undoubtedly assume strength. Therefore, beloved son in the Lord, Andrew the Abbot, to thy petitions we clemently assent, and the church of St. Mary situated at Averbode, which indeed the noble man Arnulf the Count and his consorts, with the intent of pious devotion founded; and for your sustenance, for the remedy of their souls freely offered… under the protection of Blessed Peter we take up, and by the page of the present Privilege we fortify.

[7] We establish also that whatever possessions, whatever goods the same place justly and canonically possesses or in future by the concession of Pontiffs, various privileges: the largesse of Kings and Princes, the oblation of the faithful and by other just means, God being propitious, shall be able to acquire, may remain firm and unimpaired to thee and thy successors. We add also that the same place may remain free from all exaction, as it is known to have been established by the same Founders, nor may it have any Advocate except the Bishop. Indeed of the labors, which with your own hands and expenses you cultivate, we forbid tithes to be exacted. Of the nourishment also of your animals, we command the same to be observed. But that more freely and more licitly you may be able to remain in the service of almighty God, by Apostolic authority we forbid, that it be permitted to any Bishop to drag or call you unwilling to his business, unless perhaps to a Synod. Furthermore the burial of the same place we grant to be altogether free; that namely to the devotion and last will of those who shall have resolved to be buried there (unless perhaps they be excommunicated) none may oppose; saving indeed the canonical justice or reverence of the mother church. Among the other possessions of the same place the church, which is called Tessenderlo, we nonetheless confirm. We decree therefore that to none of men at all be it permitted rashly to disturb the same place etc.

[8] Then died Innocent II in the year 1143, on the 24th of September; how the mention of these is added to the diploma of the first foundation, after whose death to the diploma of foundation signed in the year 1135, as we said, Arnold the Count added these words. This our donation also, by our Father, the Pontiff of the universal Church of blessed memory Innocent, we caused to be confirmed; namely by the aforesaid Bull signed so long after; unless perhaps because this is said to have been granted to the Abbot asking, someone may wish to opine, that another earlier one existed, inscribed to Arnold the Count himself. But that we may receive this too, yet the words, of good memory, compel us to confess, that the aforesaid clause, omitted by Chapeauville and Le Mire, was added to the twin text the Pontiff being dead; to which text if now it is found inserted, we must confess that the original parchment has perished. and so it is now had transcribed. This too persuades the Indiction 12 wrongly noted, and therefore omitted by the aforesaid two Antiquaries, in this more prudent than was the author of the Chorography; who, not turning his mind to Chronological reasons, knew not to note, that for the autograph parchment was taken by him a copy, not cautiously enough transcribed from it. Furthermore let him approach the Chorography itself, who shall wish to see, how much the Counts of Loos and others their children; how much the Bishops of Liège, and who; who too of the Dukes of Brabant and the Roman Pontiffs favored the Church of Averbode; how also more than twenty-seven Parochial churches gradually accrued to the care of the people of Averbode: it is enough for me here from Chapter 3 there briefly to extract the Series of Abbots.

§. II. The series of the Abbots of Averbode from the first Andrew up to today's.

AVERBODE

The Abbey of the Premonstratensian Order The most ancient of all the Campine Index of the Places and Workshops of the Monastery of Averbode 1 Gate of the Monastery 2 Lodging of the Colonists 3 Stable of the Guests 4 Second gate 5 Church of St. Mary and St. John the Baptist 6 Dormitory 7 Wide Ambit behind the church 8 Refectory of silence 9 Refectory of conversation 10 Infirmary, wide, behind the choir 11 Parlour 12 Library 13 Orchard of the Convent 14 Fishponds and ditches of the Convent 15 Garden of the Convent 16 House of the Prior, wide, behind the Choir 17 Place of the gate of the old Convent 18 House of Recollection 19 Episcopal Hall 20 Abbatial House 21 Halls of the Abbey 22 House of the Guests 23 Kitchen 24 Bakery 25 Brewery 26 Stable of the Monastery 27 House of the laundresses 28 Workshop of the wood-smith 29 Workshop of the iron-smith 30 Workshop of the wheelwright 31 Workshop of the glazier 32 Sheepfold 33 Barn 34 Farm 35 Cattle-shed 36 Orchard of the Abbey 37 Garden of the Abbey 38 Infirmary of the servants To the Reverend and Most Ample Lord, the Lord Servatius Vaes, Abbot of Averbode, this image of the same Abbey made by himself, for the sake of honor, gives and dedicates Lucas Vorstermans the Younger, painter and engraver of Antwerp, 1648. The new church here substituted for the old, from the idea of John vanden Eynde the Architect, delineated Jo. Sebastian van Loybos, engraved Henry Causaeus in the year 1695.

[9] The series of Abbots, First of all Andrew, everywhere honored with the title of Blessed: who by the custom of the Premonstratensian Order took care that there be instituted in the nearest Wood a monastery of Nuns, in the place to this day called Vrouwen-klooster. The same set over the Abbey of St. John near Maaseik, founded at his exhortation, Gisebert as Abbot; Walter Dean of St. Gereon of Cologne, with his brother Hubert, by the first of whom was procured the foundation of the Abbey of St. John, endowing it, Celestine II confirming in the year 1143. Of the year there can be no doubt; if only it, according to the style of that age, be extended up to the following Easter (for that Pontiff elected on the 26th of September of the year already noted, died before Easter on the 8th of March) but you may deservedly doubt, whether that Abbey founded in the place commonly Sint Jansberg, is rightly said to be founded on the estate, not to be confused with the neighboring estate, which the same Walter and Hubert possessed at Eyke which is above the Meuse, and which with the family pertaining to it and all its appendages they bequeathed to the church of Averbode, all the caution of the Salic law being observed, as attests Louis by the grace of God Count of Loos, consigning the charters of that donation, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1155 Indiction 3. donated to the people of Averbode about the year 1155. For who would not judge, that this donation written so much later than the Abbey was founded, was also made later, and different from the dowry assigned to the new Abbey; which had not, twice burned by the malevolent, quickly perished, the Abbot with his own returned to Averbode, it could have called the Abbot of Averbode Father Abbot. I return to Andrew, who while he is read in the Chorography to have died in the year 1139, on the 2nd of August, a manifest error of the typesetters you will easily note from the foregoing. Andrew perhaps surviving to 1159: Consider whether, 3 being changed into 5, you would wish to believe him dead in the year 1159; and thus to himself too the abovewritten donation of the Eyke estate was made. He being dead and buried at the edge of the high altar, this Epitaph is sculpted on the stone. A bright star of the Churches lies in this tomb, The first pious Father of this monastery, Andrew.

[10] His nearest nine successors; II Steppo or Stephen; who drew and attracted St. Arnikius in the year 1161; died in the year 1189, on the 12th of October. III Sibert, about the year 1200, translated the convent of holy Virgins from the Wood of Averbode to a village of his monastery commonly Keysers-bosch, in Latin the Caesarean grove, in the tract of Horn, near Roermond; and with its Count cooperating endowed it, shining with regular observance: but he himself died in 1202, on the 28th of December. IV Alexander, died in 1206, on the 27th of November. V Eggeric buried Blessed Arnikius, deceased in the year 1208, on the 17th of March: and under them the death of Blessed Arnikius. whose virtues and miracles, collected from the best authors, the Chorography represents; and we wished to produce among the Acts of the Saints, if we could have taught that to the same as a Saint or Blessed worship was paid, or once had been paid. Would that his body be found someday in such a manner, as may move the Apostolic See to decree his public veneration! But Eggeric died in 1210, on the 28th of January. VI Godfrey, died in 1215, on the 11th of April. VII Baldwin, familiar to the Archbishops of Cologne of his age, obtained from them the rights and possessions of the monastery to be confirmed, in the year 1218 indeed by Philip of Heinsberg, as being a thing poor in possession and rich in devotion; but by St. Engelbert, afterward a Martyr, in the year 1224, as in which, as famous renown attests, true religion had flourished and bloomed from of old: which diploma in the Chorography is read entire. He died in 1226, on the 12th of October.

[11] VIII Robert, died in 1238, on the 22nd of September. IX John de Bossuyt de Testelt, died in 1258, on the 21st of July. X Walter de Wesemale, died in 1270, on the 4th of August. XI Godfrey II de Testelt, died in 1274, on the 11th of September. XII John II de Tieldonck, resigned in 1279, then others and died in 1297 on the 2nd of December. XIII Otto of Louvain, died in 1289, on the 28th of February. XIV John III de Rotzelaer, resigned in the year 1304, and died at Antwerp in 1308 on the 11th of August, buried there, as said at number 69. XV John IV, called Quistwater of Louvain, died in 1311, on the 6th of August. XVI John V of Louvain, called Pistorius, died in 1354, on the 29th of July. XVII Reiner de Arscot, died in 1356, on the 20th of November. XVIII Arnold de Venlo, died in 1360, on the 2nd of March. XIX Henry de Wincxsele, died in 1369, on the 19th of July. XX Arnold II Tuldenus, died in 1394,

on the 1st of March. XXI John VI Multoris of Herlaer, died in 1422, on the 29th of December. XXII Daniel Laekmann, died in 1441, on the 15th of August.

[12] XXIII John VII, called Balduini, Canon of Veurne in Flanders, and then mitred, Counsellor of Philip Duke of Burgundy, most dear to Pope Eugenius IV, by his provision made Abbot of Averbode, obtained for himself and his successors the Mitre and Pontificals, thirty years or more earlier than that honor fell to the Mother Abbey, under its 25th Prelate, likewise called John, by surname Fierkens. But the Abbot of Averbode resigned in the year 1458, and died in 1460, on the 26th of January. XXIV Arnold III vanden Valgaet, died in 1483, on the 17th of January. XXV Bartholomew vanden Valgaet, died in 1501, on the 20th of August. XXVI Gerard vander Schaeft, restored the Church, Ambit, and Dormitory, in the year 1499 scorched by lightning; restored the Library, built an ample house for guests; died in 1532, on the 20th of July. XXVII Dionysius vander Schaeft, died in 1541, on the 4th of March. XXVIII Paul Gielmann, died in 1542, on the 9th of May. XXIX Jerome Fabri, died in 1546, on the 12th of October. XXX Matthew Fullonius of Rety, up to the present one: died in 1565, on the 26th of November. XXXI Giles Heynsius, died in 1574, on the 25th of September. XXXII Arnold IV vander Heyden, died in 1588, on the 3rd of October at Diest, where with the convent he was in exile, driven out, the monastery being occupied by non-Catholic soldiers.

[13] XXXIII Matthias Valentini, to the monastery, in the year 1594 by Spanish soldiery accidentally burned, brought back his own in the year 1604 from the Diest exile: where poor and modest, he so gradually restored the domestic estate in temporals and spirituals, that he is called the second Founder of the monastery. meanwhile in the year 1578 the Religious are driven out Thus briefly the Chorography: now the order of the whole tragedy, as it was lately written out for me, receive. In the year 1578 on the very feast-day of St. Bartholomew, from the camp of the non-Catholics set at Rijmenam, a force of soldiers arriving under a certain Count N. Bossuyt put to flight all the Religious, the Lord Matthias Valentini being taken at the altar, Benedict Rombouts in the pulpit, John Joannis the sacristan in the sacristy, John Cuyck the Cellarer and others, elsewhere; and the Religious remained from that day dispersed and put to flight from the Monastery for five years. the buildings burn in 1594 Then the whole Monastery was plundered; the Library, ancient manuscripts, ornaments and movables torn away; the Relics of the Saints profaned with the Church; scarcely anything remained untouched by the plundering soldiery. Afterward the Religious who survived were recalled, to the Refuge of Diest; and there the Hours and divine Lauds, in a certain chapel, which up to now with its seats survives, they performed, sustained in scantiness and religious poverty, and panting for the first place of their foundation for nineteen years. Meanwhile in the year 1594, on the very feast of St. Thomas, when the Italian foot-soldiers on account of unpaid wages had fixed their camp at Zichem; the Spaniards, under Louis de Velasco directed to restrain them, came to the Monastery of Averbode; and there wintered; and the cold of the time then urging, fires being kindled in every place, by the accustomed carelessness of the soldiery, it came about that a great part of the buildings was burned; and whatever remained of beauty, antiquity, and sacred things, in the Abbey, Library, Dormitory, and Church, scarcely at last restored in 1604, the voracious flame wholly consumed; and with new grief tore the breasts of the exiled Religious; until under Abbot Valentini in the year 1604, the Monastery was in part restored, and the Religious called back from Diest to the primeval place, merited to chant the divine lauds in the place of their foundation. The form of the church restored by Matthias the Averbode plate in Sanderus represents: which since here we give changed in some part, that there might be place for the new church built lately, receive the old one here separately.

[14] Peter Aloysius Caraffa, of Pope Urban VIII through the tract of the Rhine and other parts of Lower Germany Nuncio with the power of Legate a Latere; when after all the monasteries of the diocese of Liège he had visited Averbode too, with eminent commendation of the place by the Nuncio Caraffa, thus concerning it left written: Great solace for our soul prepared the Father of mercies and God of all consolation; and at these last bounds of the Apostolic visitation, He can be seen to have wished to supply to us, after long fatigue, a welcome relief; while by the counsel of His providence He disposed, that there should be peace to this house, and the sons of peace dwell in it, we found: but the spirit of St. Norbert the Founder so to flourish among them, as if not so long ago his holy Remains and Bones, which so long among the enemies of the faith the Lord guarded, He had wished to be drawn into the light; that all should behold the sanctity of the sons reflower, and that in these parts for the aid of the Churches it ought still long to be surviving. Thus that most worthy Prelate, by Urban's successor Innocent X afterward created Cardinal; but by me never to be named without profession of a grateful mind, who in the year 1646, the entrance closed to all by the iniquity of the time into our Belgian Society, I obtained alone, the same interceding with his kinsman Vincent Caraffa the General Superior; now near fifty years in it, whence to God and the Saints and his pious manes be thanks. Matthias died in the year 1635, on the 12th of March. XXXIV Nicholas Ambrosii, built in his monastery a new Library; and, as he was of eminent affection toward the Mother of God, for increasing her veneration an ample church at Kortenbos of the County of Loos: but he died in the year 1647, on the 9th of July.

[15] Servatius Vaes of Herk, from Prior made Abbot by the vote of all, and consecrated in 1648, on the 3rd of May, such as he found the discipline of the monastery praised by the Nuncio Caraffa, and preserved by his predecessor, up to today's day fosters and preserves, A new church built, now almost a Jubilarian Abbot, and that it may still long be permitted him, the most loving sons wish for their best Father. A new Basilica from the foundations, begun to be built in the year 1655 on the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, and furnished with an Odeum and most becoming seats in 1673, on the 23rd of June, he had dedicated by the Suffragan of Liège the Lord Anthony de Blavier. Its external appearance indeed magnificent it is permitted to see in the plate of the whole Abbey here appended, the same which is seen in Sanderus, dedicated to the Lord Servatius himself by the sculptor; but by the care of the Reverend Lord Ambrose Aertnys, the present Chamberlain, changed in that part where it was needful.

[16] the rest at home and abroad augmented. The church thus renewed the Abbot himself enriched with Relics of several Saints sought from everywhere, chiefly of St. John the Baptist; which taken from his skull in the year 1688, on the 13th of June, donated the Most Excellent Prince of Salm, now Instructor of the King of Hungary. With like care the same Prelate augmented the Library with all the best books; raised again from the foundations various houses of the Parish-priests, restored several most conveniently: and, that I may conclude with the words of the aforesaid Chamberlain, as a domestic and eyewitness, a brief and due eulogy, By work and word to his subjects he shows himself a living example of all religious virtue, present at no divine Office day and night, in this so great age of 86 years; assiduous in the reading of books both more recent and ancient, an eminent favorer of studies among his own, severe toward discipline, affable in conversation, and dear to all.

§. III. On the Abbey of Tongerlo, secondly born, and its Prelates up to the institution of the Bishopric of 's-Hertogenbosch.

[17] To a place already then known for Marian worship, Not yet were all things legitimately transacted, which looked to consolidating the Averbode foundation; when Waltmann was demanded to direct some to Tongerlo, eight leagues distant from Antwerp, and so by three hours nearer than is Averbode, to take possession of the Marian chapel there, and of certain grounds attributed to it: so that this Abbey too owes its beginning to the Virgin Mother of God. For, as in his Brabantia Mariana book 3 chapter 40 writes Augustine Wichmans, the 38th Abbot of Tongerlo, she was worshipped in this place, as the special Patroness of the Parish of Tongerlo, and was there illustrious with many miracles. But such illustrious prodigies there (the words are of our Chronologist, who flourished about the year 1178) through the negligence of writers becoming obsolete, that they are withdrawn from memory how justly we grieve. There, as the same Wichmans writes, it had its cradle, more or less the year 1130, by a certain Giselbert, a countryman and celibate, (according to the aforecited manuscript) who was full of God, and led by love of piety, the people of Antwerp invite the Premonstratensians offered the possessions which he had, to Mary the Mother of God and the Premonstratensian Order, for the Tongerlo monastery to be erected; and with them himself, as a well-pleasing victim, clad in the regular habit, and in the order of Lay Brothers a humble servant of God made. There aided his pious purpose his coheir Engelbert de Casterlee; who provoked by fraternal devotion, offered his heritage too to the monastery.

[18] for whom from 1130 the Bishop of Cambrai decrees liberty, There have perished, if any were made at their request concerning donations of this kind, the writings; but there remains the diploma of the Bishop of Cambrai, giving its liberty to the place in the year 1133, in this tenor. The desire which is shown to pertain to the purpose of religion and the salvation of souls, it becomes us with willing mind to grant, and to impart fitting support to the desires of petitioners. I therefore Burchard, Bishop of Cambrai, judged the petition of the religious men, namely Waltmann Abbot of Antwerp and Bernard of Clairvaux, to be approved, supplicating that I should donate with liberty the church of Tongerlo; at the instance of St. Bernard and St. Waltmann insofar as in it the Brothers of the Premonstratensian Order, living under the Rule of Blessed Augustine, may freely and quietly be able to serve God. Which petition judging good, and therefore kindly hearing it, the aforesaid church of the blessed Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, from all exaction and due provisions, for sustaining the Canons serving in it God and His holy Mother, I make free. Then, as is canonical and just, I willingly establish, that in appointing the Abbot, the sounder part of the Convent may obtain free power; but the Elect be presented to the Bishop of Cambrai, that consecrated by him without any contradiction or exaction of any person whatever, in his parish he may freely hold the Synodal right…

[19] and enumerates its first possessions But what possessions this Church has, we judged it necessary to insert in this charter. Two parts of the tithe of the same Church and the demesne, namely forty bonniers with one mill. Land in the same parish, paying yearly 19 sextarii of malt, with 10 little vessels of barley. Land moreover there paying 12 solidi, and one denarius with the other dues of the land; and with one manse, paying the fourth sheaf, and besides one manse of Wimple. A manse paying 5 solidi with its dues. The land Vele, paying 3 solidi, with a half and the other dues. those modest ones, while the church was still poor, This was then the whole possession of Tongerlo; as deservedly Sanderus, in the Chorography of this place (which we shall use very much) wrote at page 18, that Roger Bishop of Cambrai, in the year 1189 donates to the poor Church of Tongerlo (for in the greatest poverty the first Ascetics there lived, as being founded by a certain countryman, not a man of great wealth)

the altar of Oevel: and by these words tacitly refutes those, by whom it had been suggested to him, which now has the supreme lordship of all Tongerlo. that Giselbert the founder, was a rich man, and Lord in Tongerlo. Indeed, as noted the Lord James Baron le Roy, in the Notitia of the Marquisate page 287, the Premonstratensians do not possess the Lordship of Tongerlo from the gift of Giselbert himself; but partly from the gift of Wenceslas and Joanna Dukes of Brabant (whose diploma, in the Belgian tongue originally written, see in the same page 285 from the chamber of accounts of the Duchy of Brabant, given at Brussels on the 20th of July 1357) partly from John van Liere son of Walter, who in the year 1505 the other half of the supreme, middle, and lowest jurisdiction of Tongerlo, had acquired from Philip I King of Castile by right of mortgage; which at a small interval after he transcribed to the aforesaid monastery, as is had from the primary general Codex of the fiefs of the Antwerp territory. But Philip IV King of the Spains, in the year 1644, in perpetuity sold to the Abbot, for fifteen hundred florins, the mentioned part of jurisdiction, which his predecessors had possessed by right of mortgage. 1. The Church. 2. The Convent of the Religious women. 3. The Library and Refectory. 4. The Abbey. 5. The Parochial Church. 6. The House of the Duke and the School. 7. The Infirmary. 8. The place of the annual Recollection. 9. The Bakeries. 10. The Secretariat. 11. The Farm with the Washing-house. 12. The Stables. 13. The first Gate. 14. The greater Garden. 15. The Orchard of the Canons. 16. The Workshop of the Smiths.

[20] The series of Abbots, Who furthermore shall wish to understand, to what great power, and by what authors and times that place successively came, let him read the aforecited Chorography. I pass to briefly deducing the series of Abbots. I Henry, who once with St. Norbert, in the penance of the Antwerp nation, had come, to cleanse the foul-smelling dregs of Tanchelin, was powerful in work and speech; as him from his old Chronologist describes Wichmans: he died in the year 1150, on the fourth of the Kalends of October. II Hubert, to whom the nobles of Diest, all the right, which in the church of Diest they had used, fully resigned, that more according to the ecclesiastical Canons, both the church and the faithful people might be governed. to whom successively in Brabant above 30 Parishes were attributed. Thus more than thirty parochial churches subject to the government of the people of Tongerlo are numbered in Brabant alone, the series of which see in the Chorography chapter 1. But in Chapter VIII are enumerated the Provosts of the Collegiate of St. Sulpitius of Diest, founded by the Abbot of Tongerlo in the year 1456. Hubert died on the 8th of November, 1167. III Wipert, died in the year 1178. IV Hermann, died about the year 1186. V Henry II was living in the year 1207. VI Engeram, died before the year 1210. VII Wenemar, died or ceded before 1214. VIII Solomon, died in the year 1222. IX Egeric, died in the year 1233. X John, died in the year 1263.

[21] XI Peter, died in the year 1264. XII Franco, died in the year 1269. XIII John II de Berlaer, died in the year 1286. XIV William de Calstris, died at Prémontré, in the year 1288, on the 15th of the Kalends of November. XV Reiner, died in the year 1293. XVI Arnold de Grimbergen, died in the year 1299. XVII Godfrey de Herentaels, dies in the year 1309. XVIII Hubert II, by surname Back, of Tilburg, slain by night by two of his chamberlains, has a great Epitaph, hitherto surviving: in which the slaughter committed is said to have been done, in the year 1333, on the 14th of August. A thousand three hundred, but also thrice, thrice also ten, While the Virgin ascends, the preceding light displays his death. XIX Henry III de Becke-voert, elected, not confirmed. XX Walter Bak, deceased from office in the year 1368. XXI Giles de Hildernisse, taken from the Antwerp monastery, died in the year 1379. XXII William II de Comptich, died in the year 1394. XXIII John III de Gravia, obtained from Pope Boniface IX the confirmation of all the Parochial churches, subject to Tongerlo; The use of the mitre obtained 1400. and in the year 1400 having set out for the Jubilee, the right of wearing the Mitre and the use of Pontificals, the first of all the Abbots of his Order in Belgium he obtained from the same Pope, and returned home died on the 29th of December.

[22] XXIV John IV, called Gerardi, of Zichem, sent to the Council of Pisa in the year 1410, in the following year from Pope John XXIII, for himself and his successors obtained the right, which his predecessor seems to have had for himself alone. He built the Cloister and Dormitory, which even now exist. He founded 12 Canons at Diest with their Provost, of whom above, and died in 1428 on the very day of St. Magdalene. His Epitaph, engraved in bronze, in the Chorography, is read thus: Among the Prelates this fragrant flower John, Born of Zichen the village, lies here buried, Notable for many merits and lasting in honor, He bore the care of his own Church, about to avail, In amplifying revenues, houses, structures; And consul of his fatherland, often legate to arduous things. Who almost for twice ten years ruled with twice four, A thousand four hundred are written and twenty-eight, Magdalene, on thy day while he comes to the Heavenly ones. More of this kind of Epitaphs of the Abbots of Tongerlo, besides the one of Hubert the 18th Abbot mentioned above, are not found.

[23] In the year 1428 the Abbot of Antwerp visits Tongerlo. There exist in the archive of St. Michael the acts of Visitations, instituted by Oloudus the Abbot of the Antwerp church, out of mere office toward that his special daughter, which not only needed visitation, but even correction, and very greatly reformation… in spirituals and temporals; in one of which, in the year 1428 on the 17th of June, by the express consent, good pleasure, and will of the Reverend Father the Lord Abbot, the Prelates of the monasteries of Park and Averbode being taken and called, as Father Abbot of the said monastery of Tongerlo, the grave bodily weakness being considered, by which the said Abbot asserted himself to be detained, burdened, and hindered, so that he could not conveniently and duly exercise the pastoral office committed to him in spirituals and temporals; to him, the votes of each being heard, etc. Brother Theodoric Haren, the Provost of the said Monastery, about to give a Coadjutor to the sick Abbot, by previous examination found sufficient, to the aforesaid Reverend Father the Lord Abbot for ruling in spirituals and temporals, he gives, deputes, and ordains a fit Coadjutor. But John being dead, and the election of a successor not yet confirmed from Rome, on the 27th of September, addressing Brother N., We for certain and reasonable causes, compelling our Paternity, depose thee from the office of the Chamberlainship committed to thee by these presents. he deposes the Chamberlain,

[24] and presides over the election of the new one, XXV Theodoric ab Haren, from Coadjutor soon made Abbot, died in the year 1448, not 7, as is established from the letters given on the 10th of May to the Antwerp Abbot Oloudus, to whom the bereft Convent transmits the seal of the deceased; and because peril, they say, nay the total destruction of our church, through the delay of a new election, we see threatening; for which with swift and kind aid you will be able to provide, when you shall have undertaken your journey of coming hither; with humble prayers we ask, that your Paternity deign, these letters seen, to come hither, to visit the same church, and to proceed to a new election. XXVI Henry IV, de Voren, died in the year 1457. XXVII Henry V de Kemminagio, dies on the Vigil of Easter, in the year 1469, as is said at page 63; but the year is understood extended up to Easter, according to the custom of that age; and therefore at page 25 is numbered, by today's usage, the year 1470, which celebrated Easter on the 20th of April. XXVIII John V de Kinschot, the Commenda threatening the monastery he generously shook off; The Commenda shaken off, and the annual pension of a thousand florins, assigned to Luke Bishop of Šibenik through resignations, he removed also in the year 1474, by the decree of Pope Sixtus IV, annulling that pension and ordering it to cease; because by it the aforesaid monastery and its persons were too much burdened, and there divine worship was diminished, and in the monastery itself the accustomed hospitality observed, and the poor, who to the said monastery for receiving alms were wont to flow together in great number, the pension annulled. could not be refreshed; on account of which in those parts no small scandals arose. John died in the year 1476, and on almost the same day, the Abbot being buried, was elected on the 7th of January a successor, installed and confirmed: namely the fear of the Commenda urged.

[25] XXIX Werner de Halles, dies in 1487. XXX John VI de Westerhoven, called Father of the poor, dies in the year 1501. XXXI Peter Mans de Westerhoven, already from the year 1497 Coadjutor of his predecessor, The seal of the dead Abbot is sent to the Antwerp one, as to the Father Abbot, died in 1508. Some of these three must have died on the 21st of July: for in the Antwerp Register there exist letters of the Prior and Convent of Tongerlo, given on the very day of Blessed Mary Magdalene (without note indeed of the year, but after those which I noted above) by which to the Lord Abbot of St. Michael of Antwerp, and the most worthy Father Abbot of their monastery, humble and devoted, with devout subjection reverence and honor having professed, they indicate that the Reverend in Christ Father the Lord their Abbot, (no name being expressed) the night last past entered the way of all flesh; whose, they say, Abbatial seal, in a certain purse closed under our seal, to your Paternity through our beloved Confreres and Canons of our monastery the Prior and the Pittancer we transmit, as we are bound, devoutly to your Reverence supplicating with devout affections, that to us, your sons lacking a Pastor, a fit day for electing a new Abbot, as soon as possible, by your patent and gracious letters assigning and prefixing, in which personally to approach our monastery, and to preside over the future election, us your sons bereft of a Pastor and likewise desolate… you may deign happily to direct in the things to be done etc.

[26] XXXII Anthony Tsgrooten, built the new part of the Dormitory and cloister Ambit, [who for the case of a sudden vacancy, delegates those to preside in his place over the Election.] and a new Refectory and Library; which still survive, says the author of the Chorography. There exist in the Register the letters of the Lord Stephen Abbot of Antwerp, to the Abbots of Averbode, Park, Diest, and Belrive, given in the year 1518 on the 8th of October; by which he indicates, that it had been signified to him by the people of Tongerlo, and also humbly supplicated, that, lest by the death perhaps unforeseen of the Reverend Father and Lord Anthony their present Abbot, much worn by old age, they and their monastery or church should suffer the inconveniences of a perhaps long widowhood and prolonged vacancy… to some upright Prelates of the Order, who could more conveniently, the time of vacancy occurring, assist them, he would wish to commit his place in full. Whence we, says the Abbot of Antwerp, hindered by various cares, concerning us and our monastery of St. Michael… to you… commit, that you or one of you may approach the said monastery… and to all and each, which the matter of the aforesaid business may concern… and which we would do, or could do, if we ourselves personally were present, by the tenor of the present, to you and to each of you full faculty in the Lord we grant. Thus far Stephen the Abbot: but he himself in the same year, on the 9th of November died;

but Anthony survived ten years and more: for (as says the Author of the Chorography) in the year 1529 he laid the foundations of the new choir, as it is seen today; nor did he die except in the following year, on the 18th of the Kalends of May.

[27] The new temple perfected. XXXIII Anthony II Streyters, from the year 1526 Coadjutor of his Predecessor. His first cares were to perfect the begun temple: and for increasing the worship of the most holy Sacrament he began in the year 1539 to build a notable little chapel for laying it up, which only in the year 1548 was perfected; a work truly heroic, and to which in all Belgium you would scarcely find a like; of a height of fifty feet. He died at Mechelen in the refuge of Tongerlo, in 1560.

§. IV. The union with the Bishopric of 's-Hertogenbosch made, and again dissolved. The succession of the rest of the Abbots.

[28] The Abbey is united to the Bishopric of 's-Hertogenbosch once XXXIV James Veltacker of Diessen, soon after the death of his predecessor was nominated: but the Bishopric of 's-Hertogenbosch being instituted by Pontifical and Royal authority, his election was suspended, and the very Abbey united to that new See. But the Estates supplicating for it before King Philip, at last the union being dissolved, he was installed as Abbot in the year 1565, yet I know not whether consecrated. Certainly in the year 1569, Alba ordering, he was forced to cede his Abbatial dignity into the hands of the Bishop Francis Sonnius; yet so that there remained to him the appellation of Provost, with this, that he be present at the councils of his country, as before; that he walk ungirt in the manner of Prelates, and again: and have the government both in temporals and in spirituals, depending little on the Bishop, for life: who, after many adversities of that time bravely borne, died in the year 1583.

[29] there is given also an Administrator with the power of an Abbot, XXXV. After the death of Veltacker, King Philip, understanding Tongerlo to be in the greatest perils, and the Bishops absent through fear of the heretics to be as it were deserting it; to be surrounded by enemies, often burdened with soldiery of either party, so that certain ruin was to be expected… judged there was need of a Regular Administrator, who in the likeness of an Abbot with authority might govern. The votes of the Religious therefore being collected, partly by voice, partly by writing (because very many were dispersed hither and thither) there was found most worthy Walter de Corsworm, of Montenaken… His first zeal was to separate the monastery from the Bishopric. Wherefore in the year 1584, with the other Prelates of Brabant, to the Duke of Parma, then governing Belgium, he supplicates. To the supplication weight adds Clement Crabbeels, already then the 3rd Bishop of 's-Hertogenbosch, alleging, that the Abbey, situated toward the Antwerp parts, and burdened also with its own particular charges and cares, who, the very Bishop striving for it, on account of the Religious, and the goods, situated in several and various places; brings no small distraction to the Episcopal person, in the business of his diocese and of the said Abbey, distant no less than fifteen miles from 's-Hertogenbosch. Whose charges, are now aggravated, not only by reason of the Religious, but also by reason of the goods, which have suffered disaster, ruin, and devastation in this present war: whence it comes that a whole person would be necessary for their restoration and reduction to the former state: relieved of which care the Bishop, would be rendered fitter for the keeping of the souls committed to him, obtains liberty, a competent part of the goods being attributed to it, the extirpation of heresy, the visitation of his parishioners, and for the treating of business of this kind of his diocese. They seemed to demand fair things, both to the Governor of Parma, and to Sixtus V the Pontiff: but because for the same Bishop, provision had not been made except from the said Abbey; it pleased what he had suggested as counsel, that a competent part of the goods be derived and applied to the Bishopric; the other part being left to the profit of the Convent, and the administration left in the accustomed manner to the care of the Abbot. Which while they are being done, Walter died in the year 1592, on the 26th day of April.

[30] XXXVI Nicholas Mudtzaert of 's-Hertogenbosch, in the year 1590 elected Abbot, and the new Abbot is consecrated in the year 1592. but only two years after, the separation of the Abbey from the Episcopal mensa being decreed and established in perpetuity, in the month of August nominated by the King,… on the 26th of October installed at Brussels, the following day received consecration and the mitre from Levin Torrentius, Bishop of Antwerp… By his economy and industry, like a second Fabius he restored the lost estate of Tongerlo: until he died in the year 1608, on the 15th of the Kalends of December. XXXVII Adrian Stalpaert, The Chapel of St. Norbert founded 1615, and a college at Rome 1628 of Hilvarenbeek, from the year 1603 Coadjutor of Nicholas, and in the year 1609 on the 11th of January installed Abbot; in the year 1615, opposite the choir of the name of Jesus, raises a most beautiful chapel in honor of St. Father Norbert. But in the year 1617 on the 6th of July, with festive pomp are carried into the church of Tongerlo the Relics of Blessed Siard, Abbot of Mariengaarde in Frisia: on which matter we shall have fully to treat on the 13th of November. The same Adrian, in the year 1618, founded at Rome, under the patronage of St. Norbert, a Theological College, for his own and other monasteries' Religious in Brabant (if the Prelates should wish); and in the year following, returning from Antwerp from the benediction of the Lord John Chrysostom van der Sterre, at which with others he had assisted; falling ill at Duffel, died in the year 1629 on the 25th of October; and at Tongerlo, in the very chapel of St. Norbert which he had founded, was buried.

[31] XXXVIII Theodore Verbraecken, of Helmond, by the aforesaid John Chrysostom installed, on the day before the Sunday Gaudete in Domino, in Advent; and on the very Sunday, The immediate Paternity of the Abbot of Antwerp by Michael Ophovius the Bishop, blessed. It is the third Sunday of Advent, which in the aforesaid year 1629, having the Sunday letter G, fell on the 16th of December: but Theodore lived up to the 22nd of June of the year 1644. To this one I know not by what reason it was persuaded, to suffer the right of immediate Paternity, which the Abbot of Antwerp asserted himself to have, in respect of the Reverend Lord Abbot and Convent of the Church of Tongerlo, and its immemorial possession, to be disturbed by some contrary acts of the people of Tongerlo. For these in the year 1634 was appealed to Peter Gosset, by divine providence Abbot of Prémontré, Counsellor and Almoner of the Most Christian King, and Head and General Reformer of the whole Canonical Premonstratensian Order… the name of Christ being invoked, sitting for tribunal, and having God before his eyes… the intentions, foundations, answers, replies, contradictions, defenses, and writings of each party being seen; in respect of Tongerlo it is asserted, and counsel being had upon it of the Jurisconsults and of his Brothers; by his definitive sentence in writing declares, on the 22nd of May; that the Lord Abbot of St. Michael of Antwerp, in the possession of all and each of the rights of immediate paternal authority, toward the people of Tongerlo, and the already aforesaid Lord Abbot and Convent of that church, is and shall be to be maintained; and that he and his successors for the time Abbots of St. Michael, the true, legitimate, and immediate Father Abbots; as also the church of St. Michael, the true, legitimate, and immediate Mother of the filial church of Tongerlo, in future times, without any contradiction whatever, are to be called, named, and recognized; and all things belonging to that quality, according to the statutes, rights, privileges, and received custom of the Order, by the sentence of the General Gosset in the year 1634. ought to have used and to use, and to enjoy fully… he commands and ordains; that whatever acts to the contrary elicited, are null and presumed in fact without right, and that they therefore to the Abbot and Church of St. Michael could and can generate no prejudice; and also that to the very Abbot and Convent of the Church of Tongerlo henceforth it is to be forbidden, and concerning the right of Paternity of this kind and the things annexed and connected perpetual silence is to be imposed, decreeing and declaring.

[33] The Relics of Blessed Godfrey of Cappenberg are brought in the year 1639. XXXIX Augustine Wichmans of Antwerp, in the year 1641 demanded, and in the following obtained, and in 1643, on the 11th of January installed by the Antwerp Abbot John Chrysostom as Coadjutor, but Abbot in 1644 on the 9th of July, happily ruled the Abbey when Sanderus wrote the Chorography of the monastery, but did not adopt one written by others (as most similar ones) into his own name; which then however was prohibited to go into public. One copy nonetheless I obtained from elsewhere; but mutilated in the first leaf; as also have those few, who could obtain other copies. The cause of its being thus mutilated and suppressed I do not divine; but I use it as I have it, and from it for the supplement of January I shall take the History of the Relics of Blessed Godfrey of Cappenberg translated in the year 1639 on the 23rd of October. His Acts on the 13th of the said January elaborately illustrated by our John Gamans, Bolland publishing in the year 1643, knew nothing of that matter; those whom it concerned, and who were not ignorant of Bolland's undertaking, neglecting to communicate notice of this kind. Augustine had published in the year 1632, when he was still Pastor in Mierlo and Archpriest of Helmond, in Antwerp type a notable and tripartite work, whose title is Brabantia Mariana, by which he chiefly illustrated the monasteries of his Order through this Province. But as he had himself been an eminent cultivator of the good arts; so the same he strove to promote in his Religious. In what state Wichmans had and left the Abbey, it is permitted to know from the aforesaid scenographic plate, offered to him in the year 1651 by the most excellent sculptor Wenceslas Hollar the Bohemian; such as by the benefaction of the Lord Baron le Roy here to be beheld I exhibit, with an iconism added at the bottom of the Norbertine College at Rome, as above said built by Wichmans's mediate predecessor Adrian. Another time perhaps I shall give to be beheld another more recent, in which it can be seen, what concerning the tower struck by lightning, and more augustly repaired by the same Abbot, was changed. He was at Brussels when the sad event was announced to him; Albert made Abbot in the year 1663. and is said to have groaned, not so much at the present loss of his church, as that by the same flames there seemed to him to have burned, the new church of Our Lady of Duffel which he was meditating, with the house of the Penitentiaries to be joined to it, who across the river dwell farther beside the Parochial church, committed to the same people of Tongerlo.

[34] he professes obedience to the Antwerp one; XL Albert de Ursino, was elected in the year 1663, which the Antwerp Abbot Macarius Simeomo, confirming in writing; All, he says, the defects committed in the installation I supply, and full rule of the aforesaid church in spirituals and temporals I confer, on this day the 20th of July; and on the same day, and indeed in the place where the installation was made, he by his own handwriting confirmed these things. I Brother Albert, Abbot of Blessed Mary of Tongerlo, have promised to the Lord Brother Macarius Simeomo, Abbot of St. Michael, and at the same time held the Father Abbot of our monastery of Tongerlo, obedience, reverence, and assistance, insofar as our provincial statutes bind us. Done at Brussels on the 20th of July. The Lord James Baron le Roy, in the Notitia of the Marquisate of the Holy Roman Empire book 2 chapter 12, treating of the Jurisdiction, which in the places Kalmthout, Essen, and Huijbergen already from the year 1159 the Abbots of Tongerlo are believed to have obtained, requires the treasure of the bituminous soil still untouched, but the lowest; when he had set forth how Augustine Wichmans the high Lordship there by title of purchase from Philip IV King of the Spains acquired, in the year 1651, at a price of eight thousand florins, thus proceeds. Vast is the land of the village of Kalmthout, whose diameters on every side extend four Brabantine leagues, but not all

of fertile land. A great part, a vast heath; some places also marshy, from which bituminous soil is dug and extracted for feeding fires, which grounds there are held in the highest price; but hitherto for the greater part untouched. There was meditating to dig out that treasure Albert Ursino, even under his successor from Pastor in Roosendaal made Abbot of Tongerlo. And now twenty boats were built for conveying [it]: but while he attempts these and greater things he lost his life prematurely, deceased in the year 1664, in which year also was elected and installed his successor,

[35] XLI Hroznata Crils, to this day living. He when among the first undertakings of his rule, about to conduce to the public convenience of all and the splendor of the monastery, had ordered that the Garden be changed into an orchard, and on the contrary the orchard into a garden; and to that change not a few of the Conventuals opposed themselves in the year 1666; the Circator and Secretary, in the name of the rest, The Abbot of Antwerp is acknowledged as Father. appealed to the judgment of the Abbot of Antwerp as Father, by letters given on the 16th of February. These he ordered to be communicated to the Abbot of Tongerlo: who refuted them by a written answer to each of their reasons. Which seen, the Abbot of Antwerp judged, that they rested on no solid foundation, nor in all things leaned on truth; but what is chiefly the case, that by no constitutions of the Order was prohibited to the Abbot such a translation of a conventual garden, and a change into an orchard; and therefore committed all to his discretion. Then the Prior wrote back on the 12th of March, that he had read out letters of this kind in the chapter of the place: and I hope, he says, that to them readily our people will obey, and will cease to bring further troubles in this matter to their Prelate: who certainly seeks nothing but the good of the convent, [so that it is wonderful that under the same one was reborn a question so long ago decided.] and the peace and observance of regular discipline. With difficulty can some be persuaded: and to the unwilling sometimes it is necessary to do good… Thus he, subscribed, The most humble in Christ son, Brother John Kuysten the Prior.

[36] It happened nonetheless, that the Lord Michael Colbert, Abbot of the Premonstratensian Arch-monastery, and General of the whole Order, visiting the monasteries of Brabant, in the year 1681 came to Tongerlo; and, either ignorant or forgetful of the aforementioned judgment, brought in mention of certain documents seen by him, by which that Abbey was proven to be the Daughter of his Arch-monastery: which certain younger Religious so deeply impressed on their minds, that they hold it for a definitive sentence, and deny themselves to be Sons of the Michaelite Monastery. Them however we believe easily to be recalled to obedience, when they shall have read the aforementioned sentence of Gosset, never perhaps seen or heard by them; and the silence imposed upon their elders, and upon themselves in them, concerning that controversy. As to the documents, seen by the General Colbert; these we think to be no other, than those which on the part of the people of Tongerlo were brought to the judgment of Gosset: which General if he had likewise seen those opposed to them on the part of the Michaelites, I do not doubt that he would have approved Gosset's judgment, nor brought forth any word to the contrary. But what in so many years of his longer rule Abbot Hroznata did for the utility of the monastery; how he furnished the Library, the chief in all Belgium; how he raised from the foundations a new Hospital, of solid and magnificent work, together with its chapel; and other things of this kind, I forbear to relate, until his Religious teach me more certainly of each.

§. V. On the third-born Abbey of Middelburg, and first on its beginnings in the 12th and 13th century.

[37] Thus far we have seen the Antwerp Church of St. Michael, the Mother rejoicing in her daughters; Middelburg the head of Walcheren, now the scene must be changed, and Rachel must be seen, weeping for her sons of Middelburg, because they are not; for a most wicked beast, the Calvinian heresy, devoured them. Walcheren, the first of the Zealand islands toward the Ocean and more Western, in sight of the Flemish shore, venerates as its Metropolis Middelburg, in the 12th century still a modest town, like all the other Belgian ones; now an ample city. From some Metellus, a follower of Julius Caesar, they wish the name made, to whom it seems fine to refer thither their origins. named from its situation. I believe the name drawn from the matter. For if the polders of the island of Walcheren, as they call them, that is, fields claimed from the waters by drawn dikes and fitted for cultivation, which the Blaeu Topography shows with the sandbanks set before them, and which the common people call the Middelburg polders, separated by a most narrow strait, once perhaps not even separated. If, I say, you wish to count the polders themselves, as commonly they are counted; to Walcheren, the center of the whole island will seem Middelburg, and to fill the signification of its name in the native tongue on every side. It lies indeed plainly midway, between two coastal cities, Zierikzee and Veere, having this to the North, that to the South: yet lest anyone suspect the name of Middelburg made thence, the lesser antiquity of those places forbids, of which Veere was first erected into a parish in the year 1332, [There with the Regular Canons remaining about the year 1124 Albold was set over them,] and after 25 years began to be girt with walls; but Zierikzee in no Chronicles is mentioned before 1210, confesses Reygersberg: whatever the common people fable about Ziring, brother of Zeland, as its founder in the year 849: for they imitate Greek frivolity, in inventing the names of founders, name-makers of this kind.

[38] James Meyer, who in the last century flourished at Bruges, and wrote the Annals of Flanders, surviving up to 1552, having searched all the Flemish archives, and probably also the Zealand ones, by himself; at the year 1123 thus indicates the older name of the place. Albald Abbot or Provost of Voormezele, of Regular Canons near Ypres in Flanders, after he had laudably presided for 22 years, these being expelled, he receives the Premonstratensians, and had acquired for the monastery many goods especially in Testrep (it is a place near Ostend sunk in the sea); was made Abbot at Waltighem, that is Middelburg in Walcheren, who first were Regulars, but not long after were made Premonstratensians. The reason of the changed institute John de Beka renders, the author of the Trajectine Chronicle, carried up almost to the year 1400, in the 24th Bishop Godebold in these words: these being expelled, he receives the Premonstratensians, This Bishop also the Regular Canons, dwelling at Middelburg, on account of their disordered conduct, expelled; and religious Monks of the Premonstratensian Order, from the monastery of St. Michael of Antwerp, brought thither. William Heda, writer of the Trajectine History up to the year 1524, agreeing with Beka, uses almost the same words; and, at Middelburg, he says, a town of Walcheren, the Regular Canons, on account of their petulance removing, the Religious of the Premonstratensian Order from Antwerp, summoned in their place, instituted. There followed Beka and Heda John Reygersberg of Kortgene, in the Chronicle of Zealand, which he compiled in the Belgian tongue, and had printed at Antwerp in the year 1550, dedicated to Maximilian of Burgundy, Admiral and Captain General of Holland, Zealand, West Frisia, and the city of Utrecht; which we have also seen reprinted at Middelburg augmented and more ornate in the year 1634. In chapter 10 of this Chronicle it is said, that certain older Chronicles affirm, that in the year 1121 there was at Middelburg a convent of Regular Monks, who about these times were translated elsewhere, the Premonstratensians being placed in their stead.

[39] But what became of Albold of Voormezele, Meyer does not explain, to whom probably [Albold passed over,] from whom we received the first notice of him: he only adds, that Isaac succeeded in his place among the people of Voormezele, and ruled with praise for 17 years, with great labor, and acquired many temporal goods for the Church, pious and industrious and never idle. There flourished therefore at Voormezele if anywhere the discipline of the Regular Canons, not likewise in Walcheren; where striving to restore the same Godebold of Utrecht, persuaded Albold of Voormezele, to suffer himself to be translated thither, for his notable zeal of religion. But the evil was graver than that it could be corrected. The Walcheren people therefore petulantly refusing to be reformed, and refractory toward a Prelate brought from outside; it happened, I suspect, that the counsel of the Bishops and Abbots stood, of ejecting the unruly indeed, and dispersing them through various monasteries of the same institute; about the year 1128: but of summoning the Premonstratensians from Antwerp; into whose institute Albold himself passed, and so could be held the first Abbot or Provost of them in Walcheren, perhaps surviving up to the year 1140. Le Mire in the Premonstratensian Chronicle says the Religious of this new Order were introduced for the Regulars, in the year 1128, perhaps because then first the Abbot Waltmann was consecrated at Antwerp, [and] by full right could send a colony of his own to the Zealanders.

[40] However it is, the things hitherto narrated seem to require more than one or another year, yet not to St. Mary's, in which they were done. Nor also was the first seat of these, and so not of the Regulars whom they succeeded, the church of St. Mary, even then Parochial, the center as it were of the whole town; but another place of Middelburg, which now it is difficult to trace; whence that they might migrate (namely to bear the care of the whole Parish according to their institute) Pope Eugenius III, in the year 1145 first declared Pontiff, granted leave. The manuscript Register of the very monuments which we use, written in this century, while among other things it recounts the Eugenian Bull and its content; names the place whence the migration was made Wyk, in the little region of Altena. But such a notation is fallacious, not only because no such little region in all Walcheren is now named; but because all the Chronicles agree in this, that Bishop Godebold brought the Premonstratensians to Middelburg. But the said little region is distant more than twelve leagues thence, and in it is the village Wyk near Heusden across the old Meuse, the last corner of Brabant at the present Meuse and Waal, opposite the island of Bommel, so that of it here it cannot be thought. But what? if Waltighem (by which name Meyer judges Middelburg was formerly called) was once the name of a suburban village, in which first the Regulars then the Premonstratensians dwelt; and which, enclosed afterward within the walls of the augmented city, lost the name; whence it came, that Beka and Heda did not remember it, but simply wrote that their monastery was at Middelburg.

[41] Furthermore from the aforecited Bull of Eugenius III there becomes certainly known to us he, who in the History of the translation of St. Norbert at number 139 is named Walter the first Abbot of the church of Walcheren; for it is inscribed, To Walter Abbot of Walcheren and his Brothers. But the tenor, drawn out as well as it could from the now almost faded writing, is such. by whom first under Walter the Abbot they passed over by leave of Eugenius, As to unjust petitions no effect is to be given, so the legitimate petition of those desiring is not to be denied. For from the letters of our venerable Brother Har. (Hariberti, who lived up to 1150) Bishop of Utrecht we have inspected, that you have resolved to translate your monastery to another place, in which more quietly you may live and more freely serve the Lord, to which arrangement our aforesaid Brother gave assent, and that this in future may be lawful for you to accomplish by his writing praised. But we, whose concern it is to confirm things well done, considering your vow… the license of translation, reasonably granted to you by the same our Brother, by the authority of the Apostolic See

we confirm; establishing, that nothing however, which is recognized to pertain to us, on account of that change, to Us or our Successors, in future be diminished. Given at Rome at St. Peter's, on the 10th of the Kalends of June, no year being noted (which however is to be found before July of the year 1153, in which Eugenius died), before the year 1153, but only the day the 10th of the Kalends of June; and that on parchment, scarcely one palm long and high, with a leaden seal hung below. But this and very many others, withdrawn from the archive of Middelburg from the hands of the heretics, most of them original, I found with a friend, curious of such things, who granted to me their inspection and use kindly; glad that the time had come, in which they could thus be brought into the public light, yet so that the name and person of the possessor continue to lie hidden; to be restored to the Premonstratensians, if perhaps someday God restore them to the former possession of the place. There was among them a more recent writing, of the last century, and later than the dispersion of the Abbey, containing a Catalogue of the Abbots of Middelburg, the first year of each being noted; but (which you would wonder at) nowhere more defective, as the original monuments of the monastery have it, than toward the end, where you would have expected it more perfect. It we shall use where other proofs are lacking; and shall insert into it most of the aforesaid monuments: which if they extend this last subject into more Paragraphs, the antiquity-loving reader will indulge it I hope.

[42] That Catalogue begins from Florentius, whose beginning is ascribed to the year 1190, The age of Walter the Abbot uncertain. and whom we shall number as the second Abbot: for now it appears there is no doubt, but that before him was Walter, already known from the Bull of Pope Eugenius. Yet it can be doubted whether he was the immediate predecessor of Florentius. If he was, for at least forty years he held the Prelacy, having begun to rule before by the Pontifical grant the Premonstratensians migrated to St. Mary's, and perhaps sent from Antwerp as first Abbot after the death of Abbold of Voormezele, of whom Meyer doubts, whether he was Abbot or only Provost: who as he could have lived up to the Pontificate of Eugenius III; so he may also have died much sooner, and the Abbot of Antwerp ruled the people of Middelburg up to Walter through one or more Provosts, whose name or names now lie hidden. For it is scarcely credible, that Walter himself ruled for nearly seventy whole years, namely from the beginning of the coming of the Order into Zealand up to Florentius. Meanwhile I would wish there survived still the Bull of Victor IV the Antipope, of which the fragment of a paper letter, besides the note of the year of the Incarnation 1162 and the leaden seal hung, has nothing remaining: for it would not only indicate the cause for which that was written (which it is credible looked to the very schism, which these abominating tore up the very Bull) but perhaps also the name of the Abbot, to whom it was written; which if it were different from the name of Walter, it would follow, that he did not survive very long the migration; if the same, it would prove more certainly that his beginning is to be referred more fittingly to the Pontificate of Eugenius III.

[43] But let us at last dismiss conjectures, and begin to weave the series of those who, after Walter, in fact or at least in notice the first Abbot of Middelburg, mediately or immediately, will preside, and let there be among those known to us the second II Florentius, according to the Catalogue ordained or blessed in the year 1190. The Church of Utrecht was then presided over by Baldwin, brother of Florentius Count of Holland and Zealand: at Antwerp among the Michaelites, the sixth Prelate now was Walter de Stripen; and the Roman Church Clement III governed; of whom would that any letters existed. There exist some of Innocent III, of which one, almost wholly faded on a half-foot parchment, sealed with lead on the very Kalends of April, in the eleventh year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1208, to Nicholas de Prutris, Cantor and Scholastic of Utrecht, at the petition of the Abbot and Brothers, commends the prohibition of certain injuries, brought upon them by some Clerics and laymen: others greater on a foot-and-a-half parchment likewise sealed, but mutilated by half the leaf being torn off, the note of the year being likewise torn off, given on the 5th of the Kalends of February, are inscribed on the back by a more recent hand, The Apostolic letters of this time that they are confirmatory, that it is lawful for us to share whatever goods by hereditary right, as if they were occurring in the world; and that the Abbot can absolve the Brothers, if they have laid violent hands on anyone, unless there follow mutilation or shedding of blood. From the half which survives, it is understood the Bull was given To the Venerable Brothers A (I supply, Archbishops, Provosts), Deans, Archdeacons, Priors, and other Prelates of the Churches throughout the diocese of Cologne: and they treat of the just defense against malefactors, lawful even to Clerics and Claustrals: but of the right of inheriting I read nothing there: nor do they seem to concern the Abbot of Middelburg otherwise, than insofar as he too is the Prelate of some Church. Meanwhile the dignity of the monastic Church, then the only one at Middelburg, is proven by the frequent burial there henceforth of Counts: for in the year 1218 is said to be buried there Aleydis, the first wife of William afterward Count; and in other years consequently, to be indicated successively.

[44] III Arnold, in the year 1220: to whose fourth year pertains a certain Bull of Innocent III, given on the 18th of July, in the 9th year of his Pontificate. But in the first year of Arnold there died on the 3rd of January, Ada, widow of Florentius III the Count, and by the Abbot himself was buried in the monastery of Middelburg. To the Prelacy of Arnold the Abbot pertains a sealed Brief of Honorius III, of a palm's size, sounding thus: Honorius the Bishop etc. When from us is asked what is just and honest, both the vigor of equity and the order of reason demands, that it be brought by the solicitude of our Office to its due effect. Wherefore beloved sons in the Lord, to your just postulations concurring with grateful assent, by the authority of the present we forbid, that anyone for you for the benediction of the Abbots of your monastery anything, against the statutes of the general Council, presume to extort. The benediction of Abbots to be done gratis. Understand the 66th Canon of the Fourth Lateran Council, to which it had been reported, of certain Bishops, that when the Rectors of churches die, they subject the same to interdict, nor suffer any to be instituted in them, until to them a certain sum of money be paid. This decree therefore for the Abbey of Middelburg to be valid here the Brief declares, given at Tivoli on the 2nd … of May, in the ninth year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1225, in the 10th year after the aforesaid Council celebrated. IV Peter van Biggenkerke, in the year 1239. In whose favor Innocent IV is read to have sanctioned by letters given on the 3rd of the Nones of May, in the 3rd year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1246, that by no commands whatever emanating from the Apostolic See the Abbot is bound, to receive anyone unwilling. I have not seen letters of this kind, but others given at Lyons on the Kalends in the seventh year of his Pontificate of Christ 1250, by which to the Prior of St. Peter of Ghent it is commanded, that he vindicate the Abbot, the cause being first known, from the injuries brought upon him by a certain Henry de Coudekerke a Priest, and Henry de Vorne a Soldier, and some others. Again the same Pontiff Innocent IV, on the 9th of February, in the 9th year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1252, at Rome sanctioned; that no one of the Apostolic Nuncios should burden the Abbot and Conventuals, without the express mandate of the holy See.

[45] William King of the Romans as a second founder, But less did these profit, than the favor of William the Count, in the year of Christ 1248, in the 20th year of his age, created King of the Romans: who both ennobled the town itself with many and great privileges, and enriched the Abbey with many estates and tithes, throughout Holland and Frisia and other dominions of his right; decreeing and establishing, that the Pastors of the churches there failing, from his own bosom the Abbot for the time being should supply Parish-priests and Chaplains: which even now is done, says Reygersberg chapter 28. Nor was a small benefit of the same King to have obtained from the aforesaid Pontiff a Privilege, which from the original I add, Innocent etc. to the Abbot etc. Considering the constancy of your faith, in the aforementioned schism of the Church, and continued by the followers of the Ex-emperor Frederick up to the year 1287; which, as on the part of our most dear son W (William elected against the excommunicated Frederick) the illustrious King of the Romans we have received, and a procurer of Privileges: the Roman Church having served unshakenly in its affairs; to you by the authority of the present we grant, that no Delegate of the Apostolic See, or Subdelegate executor of the same Delegate, or even Conservator deputed by the same See, may be able to promulgate against you the sentence of excommunication or suspension or interdict, without the special mandate of the same See, making full and express mention word for word of this indulgence. To none therefore etc. The present being to avail nowise after five years. Given at Perugia on the Nones of February, in the ninth year of our Pontificate, of Christ 1253. The same King, (as in the aforecited place Reygersberg teaches) founded several monasteries of Nuns, namely Dulcis-vallis in Walcheren; commonly Soetendael, and the founder of Dulcis-vallis, distant three quarters of an hour toward the North from Middelburg, which held the place of fourth Daughter among the Michaelite ones; that of Loosduinen in Holland, and others: for he had many daughters, whom with ecclesiastical benefits of this kind he endowed, namely there consecrated to God.

[46] But because the Countess of Flanders Margaret demanded from King William homage for Zealand, slain in the year 1256, and especially Walcheren, and he denied it; it seems to have come about, that concerning certain possessions in Flanders, the Abbot suffered troubles; and these strove to remove, the protection of the Prior of St. Peter of Ghent being asked through the Pontiff. Furthermore King William in the year 1256 is slain by the Frisians, dwelling near Medemblik in Holland. Thus Albert of Stade, ending here his Chronicle; and adding, that he was buried by the same in an unknown place, of which presently. There succeeded his father not yet a year old Florentius V, under the tutelage of his uncle Florentius. But this one too soon dying and being buried at St. Mary's of Middelburg, several aspiring to the tutelage, the dominions of the orphan were vexed in manifold ways, not without inconvenience to the Abbey: which however is found to have suffered more loss through the indulgence of the former two Abbots, from the Bull of Pope Urban IV, given on the 2nd of the Kalends of February, in the 2nd year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1263, by which he judged it necessary, to annul all alienations of the immovable goods of the monastery, or leases longer than just, made by the preceding Abbots.

[47] reported in the year 1282. V. Viglius Doedius, in the year 1266. In his first year died Elizabeth of Brunswick, widow of King William, honorably buried among the Premonstratensians of Middelburg: whose son Florentius the younger Count, now made a man, and having avenged the slaughter of his father and his own by a notable slaughter of the Frisians, in the year 1282, having been informed of the place of his father's burial by a captive old man, took care to dig up the bones again, and washed had them honorably placed beside his mother's sepulchre. Reygersberg adds, that the same burial was more honorably restored, in the year 1446 by Florentius Schonhovius then Abbot.

§. VI. The Abbots of the 14th century and the half of the following, and under them their Acts.

VI James de insula, in the year 1288. To him in the year 1315 there was a contest with the Archdeacon of Utrecht, The right of the Parishes vindicated against the Archdeacon of Utrecht. wishing the Premonstratensians removed from the care of the Parishes entrusted to them: but for maintaining these the Apostolic See was appealed to, then vacant through the death of Clement V, the supplication being signed

on the 21st of January. In the time of the same Abbot, in the year 1312 Middelburg was fortified with dikes and a rampart by William the Good, the third of his name, who also founded there another parochial church, on account of the adjoined College of Canons, called under the name of St. Peter (commonly Oostmunster, that is the Eastern Monastery), which finally became the Cathedral.

[48] VII, Nicholas Hugonis in the year 1316. In his favor, Pope John XXII to the Abbot of the monastery of St. Paul of Utrecht, thus writes: The damaging contracts of the former Abbots rescinded by the Pontiff To our hearing it has come, that both the beloved sons the Abbot and Convent of the monastery of Middelburg of the Premonstratensian Order of the diocese of Utrecht, and their predecessors, the tithes, lands, houses, vineyards, meadows, pastures, woods, mills, revenues, rights, jurisdictions and certain other goods of that monastery, letters being given upon this, public instruments being thence drawn up, oaths being interposed, agreements being made, and penalties added, to the grave injury of that monastery, to some Clerics and Laymen, to some of them for life, to some for a not small time, and to others in perpetuity at farm, or under an annual rent granted; of whom some are said upon these to have obtained confirmation letters in common form from the Apostolic See. Since therefore it is our concern to succor injured monasteries, to your Discretion by Apostolic writings we command, that those things which of the goods of that monastery, through concessions of this kind you shall have found alienated unlawfully, and unjustly alienated ordered to be restored in the year 1317. or sold off; notwithstanding the letters, instruments, oaths, renunciations, penalties, and confirmations abovesaid, to the right and property of the same monastery you procure legitimately to recall, restraining contradictors by ecclesiastical censure, appeal being set aside; but the witnesses who shall have been named, if by favor, hatred, or fear they withdraw themselves, by like censure, appeal ceasing, you compel to bear testimony to the truth. Given at Avignon, on the 9th of October, in the 2nd year of our Pontificate, of Christ 1317. The parchment is even now whole, with a large leaden seal. A like Bull also is found given by the same Pontiff to the Dean of St. Peter of Middelburg on the Kalends of November, in the 4th year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1320, commending the same more briefly.

[49] VIII Nicholas of Ghent, in the year 1323. IX Oliver of Lyra, in the year 1327. X Nicholas de Alta-terra, by others Hogeland, in the year 1334; whose Chronicle of the Blessed of the Order if I could have obtained, I would gladly have made it of public right, under the title of Corollary IV. Of finding it among the people of Averbode I had conceived some hope, from the things related in their Chorography concerning Blessed Arnikius: Again the restoration commanded by the Pontiff in the year 1375, but I understand, these were communicated, by a certain Lord Butkens, who had transcribed them from the Codices of his brother Christopher, Prior among our Antwerp Cistercians in the monastery of St. Saviour, and author of the Brabantine Trophies. But of this most learned and most studious man, and most deserving by his lucubrations of Brabantine antiquity and nobility, and not to be commemorated without praise, the Chronicle of the Blessed of the Order is written. several manuscript Codices, he being dead, were badly dispersed: his nephew certainly and heir among the codices left him by the deceased did not find that Chronicle. Therefore this one thing remains, that he who caused the Chronicle of Alberic, Monk of the Three Fountains, lent to Christopher by the Chifflets, and to its owners not returned when this one died, to be happily found, to be redeemed by the Lord Baron le Roy, may also make Hogeland's chronicle come into fit hands, to be given to the public light. In his first year of rule, Benedict XII wishing to provide, on the 4th of the Kalends of July, in the 1st year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1335, wrote to the Abbot of St. Bartholomew of Eechout at Bruges, that he should give efficacious effort to recovering the goods of Middelburg, badly alienated.

[50] XI Arnold Alardi, in the year 1343. XII Peter van Dam, in the year 1355. XIII Peter Hoeck, in the year 1358: in whose 14th year, of Christ 1374, Urban V, on the 3rd of July, in the 12th year of his Pontificate, commanded the Dean of St. Saviour of Utrecht to recover the goods of the monastery; and a like mandate from the same emanated directed to the Cantor of the church of Antwerp on the 2nd of the Kalends of February in the thirteenth year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1373. XIV Hugo Boose, in the year 1386: in whose age was begun to be built the third parochial church called of St. Martin West-monasterium: because for the more and more increasing number two parishes no longer sufficed.

[51] XV William vander Does, in the year 1398. He from Boniface IX under the date of the 7th of the Kalends of September, in the 12th year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1401, obtained exemption from the jurisdiction of the Ordinary, in this tenor. Boniface etc. for perpetual memory of the matter. The gracious benignity of the Apostolic See the devout and humble sons, serving the Lord under the regular habit, by the zeal of accustomed piety fortifies round about; in the year 1401 it is obtained from Pope Boniface IX and lest by undue troubles or exactions they be harassed, is wont to cherish them with the help and protection of its special protection. Hence it is that we, to the supplications in this part of the beloved sons the Abbot and Convent of the monastery of Blessed Mary of Middelburg, of the Premonstratensian Order, of the diocese of Utrecht, inclined, also for certain reasonable causes moving our mind to it, the aforesaid monastery and its members with all churches, chapels, and places subject to and dependent on them, and persons and familiars dwelling in or pertaining to the same, present and future; and the possessions, farms, lands and whatever other goods, movable and immovable, wherever existing, to the rights and jurisdiction of the said Abbot and Convent and members legitimately pertaining, exemption from the jurisdiction of the ordinaries, with all their rights and appurtenances, which the same Abbot and Convent and monastery and members at present legitimately possess, and in future by just means, the Lord granting, shall be able to acquire; and also the aforesaid monastery, and him who for the time shall be the Abbot of the said monastery, and the persons and familiars of this kind, from all jurisdiction, exaction, lordship, superiority, and property of the Archbishop of Cologne, and of the Bishop and Provost and Archdeacon of Utrecht, who now and for the time shall be, and of any others their Superiors, Prelates of the same order and Judges ordinary or delegate, of spiritual and temporal things, having any jurisdiction, over the said Abbot and Convent, and over the churches, chapels, members, places, persons, familiars, possessions, farms, lands and goods aforesaid, by Apostolic authority by the tenor of the present, we exempt and perpetually free.

[52] And the same Abbot and Convent and monastery, churches, for the Abbot, Convent and all pertaining to them; chapels, members, places, persons, familiars, possessions, farms, lands, and goods aforesaid, with all their rights and appurtenances, into the right and property of Blessed Peter and the said See and under their protection we take up, and our own: and we will them and these to be immediately subject to the same See. So that the Archbishops, Bishops, Provosts and Archdeacons, and Judges and Ordinaries of the places, or any other person ecclesiastical or worldly, with whatever dignity he shine, against the aforesaid Abbot and convent and monastery, churches, chapels, members, places, persons, possessions, farms, lands, and goods aforesaid, pertaining to the Abbot and Convent and monastery and members aforesaid, as is premised, as being wholly exempt, may not be able to promulgate sentences of excommunication, suspension and interdict, or otherwise, even by reason of a crime or contract or matter which should be treated in court or outside, and they declared immediately subject to the Apostolic See itself. wherever the crime be committed or the contract entered into or the matter itself consist, exercise any power or jurisdiction. We decree moreover, all and singular processes and sentences of excommunication, suspension and interdict, which it shall happen to be had, or even promulgated, against the Abbot and Convent and monastery, churches, chapels, members, places and persons and familiars aforesaid, to be utterly void and empty. To none therefore etc. be it lawful to infringe this page of our exemption, liberation, reception, will, and constitution. That this is so taken from the Apostolic register, and read publicly to all having interest cited to hear it, at Rome, in the year from the nativity of the Lord 1530, Indiction 3, on Friday indeed, the 27th of the month of May, of the Pontificate of the most holy Father and Lord the Lord Clement by divine providence the seventh Pope, attests Jerome de Ginutiis, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See Bishop of Worcester, Chamberlain of Our most holy Lord the Pope, and ordinary Judge of the Roman Curia, and also general Auditor of the Curia of the causes of the Apostolic Chamber, at the instance and requisition of the Lord Albert Pius, Canon of Utrecht, deputed for this, as it seems, to be obtained from the people of Middelburg, because for them had perished (as I think) the original instrument of their exemption.

[53] XVI Wigger Gerardyns, in the year 1405. By him asked, through two delegated from the monastery, Henry Poelwyc, by God's patience Abbot of the monastery of St. Paul of Utrecht, of the Order of St. Benedict, declared, that there coming the religious men and lords, Walter son of John, and Nicholas son of Nicholas, A fief granted to the people of Middelburg by the Abbot of St. Paul of Utrecht. Canons of the Church of Blessed Mary of Middelburg, in the name of the Reverend Father and Lord the Lord Wigger the Abbot and his monastery and church aforesaid, asked humbly, to be granted to them, in the name above, the tithes situated in Swalinghem, and the tithes which Henry called Bruusche and his predecessors, from him and his monastery once held in fief, and the same Lords Abbot and Convent from him and his predecessors the Abbots of St. Paul possessed by feudal right. These the same Abbot of St. Paul, homage and the oath of fidelity being received, grants, under the obligation of paying yearly, on the feast of Blessed Remigius and Bavo, six pounds of Black Tournois, and eighteen denarii; in the year of the Lord 1406, on the 17th day of February. Here someone might suspect, that Henry called Bruusche was also an Abbot, the predecessor of Wigger: since he is there addressed by no honorific epithet; but as a lay man, who had received tithes of this kind from his predecessors under feudal obligation, and by the concession of him who then had been Abbot, under such obligation; he had now sold or donated the same to the Abbots of Middelburg; and so these jointly are released with the tithes in Swalingem, which from the same Abbot of St. Paul had been granted to Middelburg immediately, perhaps from the time of the first foundation.

[54] Furthermore Wigger the Abbot, in the year 1418 on the 11th of May, had to appeal to the Apostolic See, The Pontiff appealed to in the year 1413 against the then Bishop and Provost of Utrecht, that is the people of Utrecht, Frederick de Blankenheim and Zuederic de Culenborg, afterward, that is in the year 1413, made also Bishop. But in the 12th year of that century on the 10th of May, to the Abbot himself was committed, that with the Abbot of Sion assisting him, he should make a beginning of founding the monastery of Regia-vallis. But about the year 1418 Martin V, to the Abbot of St. James of Liège and the Dean of St. Donatian of Bruges committed, the restitution of the goods and rights unjustly alienated from the monastery,

to procure with all diligence; restitution commanded in the year 1418, and 1428. under the date of the 9th of July in the 1st year of his Pontificate: which commission in the person of the Dean of Bruges was repeated in the 10th year of the same Pontificate, on the very Kalends of July, of Christ 1428. Under the same Abbot, when the people of Middelburg, and the inhabitants of the other cities of Zealand, saw the wealth and power of the people of Zierikzee increased above their own by the benefit of long-distance commerce; they too began to build ships to be sent across the sea, and by like commerce as means greatly to increase.

[55] XVII Nicholas vander Cruster, 1432; in whose The Council of Basel in the year 1437, 3rd year the Council of Basel appealed to by him, for the aforesaid restitution, expedited a diploma of this kind: which from the original parchment, well hitherto preserved, receive. The Sacrosanct Synod of Basel, in the Holy Spirit legitimately gathered, representing the universal Church, to the beloved sons of the Church, the Abbot of the monastery of St. Michael of Antwerp, and the Dean of the church of St. Donatian of Bruges, of the diocese of Cambrai and Tournai, and the Official of Utrecht, greeting and the blessing of almighty God. To the just vows of supplicants, especially to those by which provision is made for the state and indemnities of those serving the Lord under the regular habit, by the zeal of a pious life, we gladly assent, and pursue them with opportune favors. Indeed the petition on the part of the beloved sons of the Church, the Abbot and Convent of the monastery of Middelburg, of the Premonstratensian Order, of the diocese of Utrecht, exhibited to us, contained, that the malice of the times causing it, and the previous negligence of the Abbots, and of others who for the time presided over the said monastery, the tithes, census, revenues, houses, lands, meadows, woods, rights, jurisdictions, possessions, things and other goods, to the Abbot and Convent and monastery aforesaid legitimately pertaining, [the restitution to be procured he also commits to the Abbot of Antwerp, the Dean of Bruges, and the Official of Utrecht.] guarantees and sureties being sometimes given upon them and public letters and instruments, renunciations being made and penalties added, to the grave injury of that monastery, are known to be sold off or even alienated: and that some lay and ecclesiastical persons strive to vex and disturb the same Abbot and Convent, and also the individual persons of the said monastery, upon the premises and other goods, pertaining to them and the aforesaid monastery commonly and severally, even against the constitution of happy memory of Pope Innocent, which begins, Ad reprimendam, and is called Carolina, accepted in the general Synod of Constance, in favor of the Clergy and Ecclesiastical persons, and to bring injuries upon them often.

[56] under very pregnant clauses, Wherefore on the part of the Abbot and Convent aforesaid, it was humbly supplicated to Us, that upon these things, for them and the said monastery we would deign opportunely to provide. We therefore to supplications of this kind inclined, to your Discretion by these writings command; that you or two or one of you, by yourselves or another or others, all and singular things sold off and alienated of this kind, to the right and property of that monastery, by our authority reduce and recall; and the same Abbot and Convent to their former state restore; and also declare those injuring, vexing, and disturbing of this kind, to have incurred the penalties and censures, contained in the same Constitutions; making also, all and singular being called, who shall be to be summoned, when and whensoever on the part of the Abbot, Convent, or persons of the monastery of this kind you shall be required, and otherwise upon the premises, and concerning them or their things and goods, against any whomsoever, the fulfillment of justice; restraining contradictors by ecclesiastical censure, appeal being set aside; notwithstanding both the Constitution of happy memory of Pope Boniface VIII and other Apostolic Constitutions, and the guarantees, sureties, letters and instruments aforesaid, and any other contrary things whatsoever; or if to any commonly or severally it has been granted by the Apostolic See, that they cannot be interdicted, suspended, or excommunicated, or be summoned outside or beyond certain places to judgment by letters, not making full and express and word-for-word mention of such grant. Given at Basel on the Ides of August, in the year from the Nativity of the Lord 1435. In the fold it was signed. John de Dyck.

[57] There was hung to the parchment, in the Pontifical manner (for that Synod arrogated to itself all Pontifical power) hung, I say, a leaden seal, [by force of which the Abbot of Antwerp expedites executorial letters in the year 1437,] whose copy because nowhere else expressed I have hitherto seen, here I exhibit, together with the seal of Oloudus the Abbot of St. Michael, one of the aforesaid Commissaries, who for the execution of the Synodal mandate in the year 1437, on the 3rd day of August, through the Notary Giles Corte expedited most ample patents: by whose force whether the people of Middelburg profited more against the iniquitous possessors, than by the mandates of so many preceding Pontiffs, I vehemently doubt. How old the Michaelite Seal is, I do not divine; nor from the form of the letters is enough argument drawn to believe it older than the 13th or 14th century; under the old seal of his Abbey. otherwise the people of Antwerp have in it the form of their shield expressed for that time, namely of the Castle or old Burg with two hands, doubtless from the opinion of those, who by aspirating wrote the name of the city Hantwerpen, and by that name wished the Projection of hands to be signified, according to the common little fable of the Antwerp Giant. In that which St. Michael holds for a shield you see the emblematic figure of a Cross, girt as it were with rays of running sceptres: but the third shield of the other side, contains the Abbatial crozier double and crossed, because this is the accustomed symbol of Mother Abbeys. Under St. Michael is seen kneeling the Abbot of the monastery, without mitre, which namely fell to the Michaelites first under Oloudus's successor John. In the year 1436, says Reygersberg, the Abbot incurred great peril from the people, A sedition against the Abbot quelled in the year 1436. tumultuating against him, and the questor of Bewester-schelde and the Magistracy: but they averted it, having entered secretly by night with an armed band of their own, the Lord Franco van Borssele Count of Oostervant, and the Lord Henry van Borssele, Lord of Veere; and pacified the sedition, the authors partly having escaped by flight, partly being beheaded. Thus Reygersberg chapter 46. But Pope Calixtus III, in the year 1455, expedited an ample Brief in favor of the Abbot and his Brothers, but which, the ink being now wholly faded, can no longer be read.

§. VII. The rest of the Abbots in the 15th century; to the last of these was subjected the monastery of Virgins of The Hague in Holland.

[58] XVIII Florentius Aerts-soon or son of Arnold, in the year 1459. XIX Peter vanden Damme, died in the year 1464, as Philip Duke of Burgundy asserts, transferring all those fiefs which he had held here into the successor soon to be named John, by letters given on the 8th of August: with which agree the confirmatory ones of Paul II, soon to be produced, on the 4th of the Ides of the preceding March; but they are silent about the surname, which Philip expresses. And the same perhaps from the father's name was also called Peter Nicolai, whom the interpolator of Reygersberg, among the Zealanders famous for erudition, with the title of Doctor in Theology and Abbot of Middelburg recounts at the end of the oft-said Chronicle: certainly no other occurs whom you may more aptly understand there, for it does not please on his account to augment the number of the Abbots.

[59] Paul II, in the place of the deceased Peter XX John van's Gravenzande, in the year not 1486, as you have it wrongly, which we elsewhere follow, the manuscript Catalogue, through an error to be attributed to the carelessness of the copyist alone; but 1464. This proves manifestly the decree of Paul II, original, on parchment, and fortified with a leaden Bull according to custom, in this tenor: Paul the Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God, to all the vassals of the monastery of Blessed Mary of Middelburg, of the Premonstratensian Order, greeting and Apostolic benediction. Today the monastery of Blessed Mary of Middelburg, of the Premonstratensian Order, of the diocese of Utrecht, then by the death of the late Peter, once Abbot of the said Monastery, who outside the Roman Curia closed his last day, being vacant, of the person of the beloved son, John de Sgravenzande, Canon of the said monastery, expressly professed of the Order itself, and constituted in legitimate age; and by the beloved sons the Convent of the same monastery concordantly elected as its Abbot, by the counsel of our Brothers, by Apostolic authority we have provided, confirms the elected John as Abbot, and have set him over it as Abbot; committing to him the care, government, and administration of the said monastery in spirituals and temporals fully, as in our letters thence drawn up is more fully contained. Wherefore to your Whole body by Apostolic writings we command, that the same John the Abbot, for the reverence of Us and the Apostolic See, kindly receiving, and with worthy honor pursuing, you study to exhibit to him the accustomed fidelity, and the wonted services and rights, due to him from you, entirely. Otherwise the sentence or penalty, which the same John the Abbot shall duly pronounce or establish against the rebellious, we will hold ratified, and will cause, the Lord being author, up to worthy satisfaction, to be inviolably observed. Given at Rome at St. Peter's, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand four hundred sixty-four, in the year 1464, on the Ides of March, in the first year of our Pontificate; and it was signed in the fold, John de Buccabellis.

[60] The same John de Buccabellis likewise sent to Middelburg a notable parchment, closed with Pontifical lead, by which was contained the formula of the oath to be sworn by s'Gravenzande to the Apostolic See, and proposes to him the formula of the clientelar oath, which with the subscription of his name added and the seal of his Abbey he should send back to Rome. The lead hung to each parchment, on one side represents Peter and Paul sitting together, on the other Paul II himself on the throne, publicly hearing supplicants: which act also some of his coins represent with the subscription, Public Audience: which here is not present, but above is written, Pope Paul II, as is to be seen also at number 5 in the Pontifical History, explained through coins by Claude du Molinet. On which occasion I would note, that that Paul seems to have been the first, who changed the form of the leaden Bull customary to his predecessor Pontiffs (which gave to the Papal letters themselves the name that they be called Bulls); for as many as up to now we have seen Bulls from the Middelburg Archive (but we have seen and handled altogether eighteen) earlier than Paul, all on one side have nothing else, than the name of the Pontiff and the number of the name, on the other the names and heads of the Apostles Peter and Paul, expressed in a very rude type.

[61] The tenor of the prescribed oath was this. I John de Sgravenzande, Abbot of the monastery of Blessed Mary of Middelburg, of the Premonstratensian Order, of the diocese of Utrecht, from this hour henceforth, will be faithful and obedient to Blessed Peter and the holy Apostolic Roman Church, and to our Lord the Lord Paul II the Pope and his successors canonically entering. I will not be in counsel or consent etc. plainly as the Roman Pontifical prescribes, by command of Pius IV printed at Venice in the year 1561, in the form of the oath to be sworn by Abbots to be blessed by Apostolic authority, and exempt from the ordinary power, such as that of Middelburg was, and to this day all the Premonstratensians are, it is ascertained: who all from the said Pontifical do this, but now with this new clause added, by command of Clement VIII in the year 1595; And if I come to any alienation, the penalties, contained in a certain Constitution issued upon this, by that very fact to incur I will:

which being read the Elect swears: and on the Sixtine parchment, of which we treat, was subscribed: So help me God and these holy Gospels of God, which namely he is ordered to touch with both hands held out to him. Furthermore this parchment and thus sealed, brought to Middelburg, and opened, the bonds of the seal being saved, was not sent back to Rome, as the Pontiff seemed to intend; but remained with the Abbot: who, I would believe, for it sent back his oath likewise written and subscribed on parchment by his own hand and fortified with the seal of the Abbey. But in this that the Virgin Mother of God was expressed, I scarcely indeed doubt; yet hitherto I have found no instrument, to which it was hung, and whence I could give it to be seen in bronze, as above I gave to be seen the old seal of the Antwerp Abbey.

[62] He receives Prince Charles, I could here exhibit the aforecited patent letters of trans- and infeudation of Duke Philip, that I might somewhat render into Latin the terms of our vernacular tongue in which they are written, Verley-en-verleen briven: but because I have preferred to give other like ones of the Emperor Charles V below, I did not think these were to be set forth here. Here it only pleases to mention the quittance (as they call it) upon the relief of certain Tithes and grounds, rendered by this Abbot on the 20th of July in the year 1466, to Henry son of John van Wissenkerke. Therefore this very John s'Gravezande, not his predecessor, received in the year 1468, and inaugurated as Count of Zealand, Charles the Bold Duke of Burgundy: who granted many new privileges to the people of Middelburg; by which, and animated by the daily growing fortune of their city, the citizens began to build a new most elegant Town-hall: and not content with these, in the year 1474 to gird it with new walls and a continuous portico, with gates of beautiful work also added.

[63] To the same John the Abbot in the preceding year 1473 most ample patent letters on parchment gave at Bruges on the 17th of August, and the Sixtine Bull, for a subsidy against the Turks, of the year 1462, Andrew de Spiritibus of Viterbo, Doctor of Both Laws, Protonotary of the Apostolic See, and Cleric of the Apostolic Chamber, in the kingdom of France and all the provinces of the Gauls, and also the Duchy and the several dominions of the Most Illustrious Lord Duke of Burgundy, and the kingdoms, dominions, cities, dioceses, lands, and places adjacent to them, Nuncio and Apostolic Commissary, upon the collecting of money, to be published for the uses of the Turkish war, together with the Indulgences for that end proposed. These letters begin: To our beloved in Christ John Abbot of the Monastery of St. Mary of Middelburg etc., eternal greeting in the Lord. Since by the office enjoined on us we are bound to all Christ's faithful, set in the said places, languishing with the disease of conscience, to exhibit suitable medicaments of salvation. And first to the Abbot himself Andrew grants the faculty of choosing a Confessor, for removing whatever ecclesiastical censures or penalties, hitherto unpublished and worthy of light. in order to the execution of the Apostolic letters, upon the aforesaid subject, to all the Prelates of the Churches, among whom he deservedly judged John of Middelburg to be the head of the whole Zealand Clergy. That Sixtine Bull, which is wholly inserted in the letters of Andrew, begins: To the summit of the Apostolate called by the divine Clemency disposing; nor is it found in the Roman Bullary, nor does it seem to have been known to Raynaldus continuing the Baronian Annals: but it so pathetically describes the evils, brought upon Christians by the most savage nation and further to be feared, that it is altogether worthy of public light: which however here I cannot give it, touching Middelburg specially in no point of itself. I will do this when my special Attempt on the Pontifical Chronology is reprinted.

[64] Charles being slain, his only daughter Mary, with the dowry-Provinces, received Maximilian, He presides over the inauguration of Maximilian, son of the Emperor Frederick, in the year 1477; and her oath for Zealand and Holland received at Middelburg the aforenamed Abbot, in the month of March. The same again the Prince Philip born of that marriage inaugurated in the year 1502, and of Philip when he, from mid-May up to the festival of Middelburg, gave judgment to all approaching in the very Abbey. But these glad things a sad fire interspersed, by which the same wholly in the time of this John burned, but again about the year 1494 began to be restored with great spirit, by the testimony of Reygersberg.

[65] XXI John Dankard, by him who transcribed or supplied the Catalogue, Innocent VIII likewise institutes the successor, by a like carelessness or ignorance as Peter was passed over; he became known to us from the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII, given at Rome at St. Peter's, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1484, the 1st of his Pontificate, in this tenor. Innocent the Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the venerable Brother the Bishop of Utrecht (this was David of Burgundy, natural son of Philip the Good the Duke) greeting and Apostolic benediction. Today the monastery of St. Mary the Virgin of Middelburg etc. by the death of the late John, the late Abbot of that monastery, deceased outside the Roman Curia, being destitute of the rule of an Abbot, of the person of the beloved son John Dankard, Abbot of the said Monastery, accepted by us and our Brothers according to the exigency of his merits, by the counsel of the same Brothers by Apostolic authority we have provided, and have set him over it as Abbot; committing to him the care, and commends him to the Bishop of Utrecht. government and administration of that monastery in spirituals and temporals fully, as in our letters thence drawn up is more fully contained. Since therefore, that the same John the Abbot in the rule committed to him of the aforesaid monastery, which is recognized to be subject to thee by ordinary right, may be able more easily to prosper, thy favor is known to be most opportune for him; thy Fraternity we ask and exhort attentively, by Apostolic writings commanding, that the aforesaid John the Abbot and monastery, having it subject to thee by ordinary right, for the reverence of Us and the Apostolic See more readily commended, in amplifying and preserving their rights, so pursue them with the protection of favor, The third John, known from an instrument. that the same John the Abbot, supported by thy protection, in the rule committed to him of the aforesaid monastery mayest more usefully exercise himself; and thou mayest thence more abundantly merit the divine mercy, and our and the said See's benevolence and grace.

[66] XXII John de Westcappel, likewise in the manuscript Catalogue passed over, yet most certainly known to us from a notable parchment Cartulary of the monastery of St. Barbara of The Hague, to which is prefixed, subscribed by the hand of the Notary Martin Huysman, and collated with the original, a copy, equally on parchment, of a most solemn act, by which the Religious women of the aforesaid monastery passed into the jurisdiction of the Abbot of Middelburg, of a tenor worthy to be transmitted entire to the memory of posterity.

[67] In the name of God. Amen. By the tenor of the present public instrument let it be evidently patent to all and known, that in the year of the Nativity of the same Lord one thousand four hundred ninety-six, Indiction fourteen, but on the twentieth day of the month of September, at the fifth hour of the same day after noon or thereabouts, in the Pontificate of the most holy in Christ Father and our Lord the Lord Alexander, by divine providence of this name the sixth Pope, in the fifth year of his Pontificate; Of the Nuns of St. Barbara of The Hague, in the presence of the venerable and religious in Christ Father and Lord, the Lord John de Westcappel, Abbot of St. Mary of Middelburg of the Premonstratensian Order, and of me the Notary and the Witnesses to be subscribed below, and for this called and asked together, there being personally present the religious and devout, Gertrude, daughter of Nicholas, Prioress; Delia daughter of Andrew, Andriana daughter of Henry, Mary daughter of William, Machtildis daughter of Nicholas, Hildegard daughter of John, Beatrix daughter of John, Mary daughter of Nicholas, Martina daughter of Ysbrand, Nuns; then Mary daughter of William, Hildegard daughter of Gerard, and also Mathildis daughter of Hugo, Lay Sisters; representing the Convent and Chapter (as they asserted) of Blessed Barbara of The Hague of the Premonstratensian Order; and capitularly, as they asserted and is the custom, in the chapter place, by the instinct of the Holy Spirit, as it pleased specially gathered, upon certain pacts or agreements, clauses and articles, written in a certain paper schedule in the vernacular tongue; by the common consent and lawfully of those testifying, in the year 1496 and upon them drawn up for the preservation and ornament of religion and likewise the increase of the devotion of the same Sisters; and by them and by me the public Notary subscribed below to the same aforesaid Nuns and Sisters publicly read out, from their certain and foreseen judgment, not by force, deceit, fraud, or any other sinister machination circumvented, but by provident and well-matured deliberations, as they asserted, upon them very often had beforehand, by all the better modes, ways, rights, causes and forms, by which better, more firmly and more efficaciously they could and ought, jointly and severally, and each of them apart, as also she ought, for themselves and their followers, by their oath in the hands of the discreet and religious man the Lord John Olardi their Provost, in the year, month, days as above, solemnly and canonically sworn; and now anew in the hands of the same Notary Priest subscribed below by legitimate stipulation renewed, promised, swore, in what manner they to themselves and posterity, and each of them promises and swears by these presents, all and singular things subscribed below, in the said paper schedule written, as is premised, sworn and published in all and singular and through all, firmly and inviolably to observe. Which said paper schedule follows in the vernacular word for word, and is such; but into the Latin tongue here translated is offered. I Gertrude daughter of Nicholas, and the rest who are named above, the Chapter of the convent of St. Barbara of The Hague, of the diocese of Utrecht, at this time representing, make known to all, who shall read or hear read the present letter, after good deliberation and treatment, capitularly upon the subsequent points, matters, and articles gathered, for exalting and bettering our religion and manner of living, and for serving God in the same more aptly and more fervently, for us and our posterity, the Abbot of Middelburg. we have given and submitted ourselves and each of us, we give and submit, to the subjection and obedience of our reverend in Christ Father the Lord John of Westcappel, Abbot of the Convent of Our Lady of Middelburg, under and with certain pacts and conditions, here below following.

[68] they elected as Father Abbot, In the first place. Our reverend in Christ Father and Lord the Abbot of the aforesaid Convent of St. Mary of Middelburg, shall have and retain the care and paternity of things both temporal and spiritual in our aforesaid convent of Nuns, over the Provost and the Nuns, both Lay Sisters and Sisters; and shall be esteemed the Father-Abbot of the same monastery, with such pre-eminence, as any of the Father Abbots of the Premonstratensian Order has over his sons and daughters.

[69] But especially we the Nuns and Lay Sisters of the said Monastery, abdicating the right to the election of the Provost, now existing or hereafter to exist, in the name of ourselves and our posterity, abdicate all right, which we have or could pretend to have, concerning the election or postulation of our Provost; and we promise, under the oath thereupon made and solemnly sworn in the hands of the aforesaid reverend Father our Provost, who first himself swore in the hands of our Reverend Father the Abbot; that at no time, either by ourselves or by any other whomsoever, openly or secretly, or by any other excogitable way or manner, will we machinate anything against this our promise,

nor seek any dispensation thereupon, or in any manner obtained use it at all, even if from the free will of Our Most Holy Father the Roman Pontiff it were freely granted to us of his own accord. But the aforesaid reverend Father-Abbot alone and no one else in common, by his free will, may be able to require our counsel or consent, and accepting, the one established by him for them. as often as there shall be need, and it shall happen that the Provostship of our said Convent through resignation, death, or any other manner be vacant, he will ordain and constitute it for us: just as the same our Reverend in Christ Father, the Lord John of Westcappel, Abbot of the said monastery of Middelburg, relying on the proved life, honesty, prudence, and diligence of the religious man Brother John Allerts, professed of the same monastery of Middelburg of the said Premonstratensian Order, makes the aforesaid Brother John at present Provost of our Convent, and in the name of God constitutes.

69 (bis) Furthermore if either the Brother John Allerts himself or any of his successors, so that he is subject to his correction and removable by him. in the time of his rule and Provostship, should live badly, dissipate the goods of our Convent, or otherwise offend against his profession, the aforesaid Reverend Father Abbot of the Convent of Middelburg of the Premonstratensian Order, and Father-Abbot of our Convent, will depose the same Brother John Allerts or his successor for the time from the provostship, administration and government of our Convent, and will substitute another; and the said Brother, as his subject, according to the statutes of the said Order and the manner of the crime, will correct and chastise. So that the aforesaid Reverend Father-Abbot of the monastery of Middelburg and our Convent of St. Barbara, alone and entirely and according to the discretion of his free will, in our aforesaid Convent may be able to ordain, institute, and depose the aforesaid Provost, no one's counsel or consent thereupon required: nor may any person be able to be received into this our Convent for probation, unless first and before all things he has asked and obtained it from our Reverend and Middelburg Father-Abbot. They hand over to him also the right of receiving Novices; But if the Provost or Prioress should do the contrary, they shall be gravely chastised, and deposed from office, if the aforesaid our Father-Abbot shall so judge it fitting.

[70] But as to the visitation of our aforesaid convent of St. Barbara, they subject themselves to his visitation; the reverend Father our in Christ Abbot of Middelburg, alone entirely and always will exercise the office of Visitor, visiting the Provost, the Nuns and the Lay Sisters of our said Convent, in head and in members, in things both temporal and spiritual, according to the Statutes of the Premonstratensian Order; nor any other, except him whom he shall specially depute for this. Moreover we the Nuns and Lay Sisters, now existing or hereafter to exist, shall be and shall remain in perpetuity under the strictest and firmest enclosure; so that no man or woman, of ecclesiastical or secular state, may be able in any manner to enter to us, they promise the strictest enclosure, except in a case of necessity. But in such a case, to the woman thus entered and our Sister, of our other Sisters one or more shall be present. So namely that to women it shall be lawful to enter within our enclosure on the occasions written below, namely, when our Sisters are clothed or profess, or at the Dedication of our church, or when some funeral with a corpse present is to be admitted to be buried among us. Saving that to women thus entered within our cloister it shall not be lawful to pass to our dormitory or within the enclosure to eat or drink. The Nuns also of our Premonstratensian Order shall not enter our aforesaid enclosure, from which even outside women are to be kept; nor speak with our people, unless they be of regular observance. But of men only our reverend Father-Abbot may from time to time enter to us with familiars, whom he shall either have brought from Middelburg, or shall have taken specially deputed for this. All which prescribed points and articles, and each of them, we the Prioress and Community of the aforesaid Convent, in our name and that of those to come hereafter, have promised and promise, under the oath thereupon sworn in the hands of our aforesaid Provost, to observe without any defect, just as also on this day of our solemn profession we publicly and expressly promised.

[71] In faith and testimony of which truth, we the Prioress and Community, and they ask that he himself subscribe, have hung to these the seal of our said Convent: and for greater firmness and more certain observance of the aforesaid articles and ordinances, all of us and each of us have besought our reverend in Christ Father the Lord John van Wescappel, the present Abbot of Middelburg, that he deign to confirm all the prescribed points, and fortify with his seal: which I John van Wescappel, at the supplication of the aforesaid Prioress and Community did, in the year, month, day, noted in the instrument thereupon drawn up.

[72] Upon all and singular which, the abovesaid Nuns and Lay Sisters, jointly and severally, and that the Notary make a public instrument of all, willed and asked, and each of them for herself and her followers willed and asked, to be made and drawn up by me the public Notary subscribed below one or more public instrument or instruments, with clauses fitting and opportune to this, at the direction of any wise man, in better form. And the aforesaid Religious Nuns and Lay Sisters willed, jointly and severally, for themselves and their followers, the abovesaid instrument and instruments, in perpetuity, for strength, faith, and testimony, to be fortified with the seals of the abovesaid venerable in Christ Father and Lord the Abbot of Middelburg and also of his Convent. These things were done in the greater house, for now the church and chapter place of the aforenamed Convent, under the year, indiction, month, day, hour, pontificate, which duly and before witnesses signed and place as above; there being present there the venerable, excellent and magnificent Lords masters and religious men, William son of James, Provost of the monastery or Convent of the name of Dulcis-vallis of the parts of Walcheren, of the Premonstratensian Order; James Houtenisse, of the Order of Minors, Professor of Sacred Scripture; Arnold Boot, Doctor of Both Laws; Marcellus Tolini of Mendonk, Licentiate of Both Laws, witnesses worthy of faith, specially called and asked to the premises.

[73] the Notary finally subscribes. I Nicholas, son of Simon de Noortwick, Priest of the diocese of Utrecht, public Notary by the authority of the sacrosanct Apostolic See, because of the aforesaid venerable in Christ Lord Abbot of Middelburg, and also of the religious Nuns and Lay Sisters upon certain pacts, statements and articles, the agreement, action, renunciation of the provostship, obedience, submission, and swearing of the oath, and all and singular the rest, while they were thus, as is premised, transacted and done, together with the aforenamed witnesses I was present; and saw and heard all and singular these things thus to be done; therefore the present public instrument, written by me, thence I drew up, and reduced into this public form; and with my own usual and accustomed sign and name subscribed and signed, in faith, strength and testimony of all and singular the premises, with the aforesaid witnesses, specially asked and required.

§. VIII. The rest of the Abbots up to the constituting of the Bishopric.

[74] XXII Peter vander Capelle, in the year 1503: to whom in that very same year, on the 4th of the Ides of May, it was granted, that he might dispense with his Conventuals, infirmity requiring it, in the use of forbidden foods.

[75] XXIII Maximilian of Burgundy, in the year 1520: The installation of Maximilian of Burgundy: at which year thus writes in the Chronicle Reygersberg: Maximilian of Burgundy, son of Baldwin the Bastard of Burgundy, came from Rome, and provisionally was made by the Curia Prelate of Middelburg; he was made also Abbot of St. Ghislain in Hainaut: but Baldwin was the natural son of Philip the Duke, and from him proceeded the illustrious family de Fallais. There are had the patent letters of the Emperor Charles V, his death and notable works. given on the 12th of May 1520, of trans- and infeudation for the house of Westhoven and its dependencies, to be held by his beloved kinsman Maximilian aforesaid and his successors, by the same feudal right, by which the Lord Peter vander Capelle and his predecessor Abbots held it, under a rent of one red falcon, and five Holland pounds.

[76] Furthermore the aforepraised Reygersberg at the year 1534, after relating the death of Clement VII, met on the 25th of September, thus proceeds in the aforecited Chronicle: At the same time at Brussels in Brabant died the Reverend Lord Maximilian of Burgundy, and was carried to Middelburg in Walcheren within a leaden ark, and there in the Abbey buried. The nobility and learning of the aforesaid Prelate is greatly extolled by Erasmus of Rotterdam and Hadrian Barland. The painting of John of Mabuse He himself while he lived had the said Abbey in manifold ways restored; a man very prudent and well-mannered. He had painted that beautiful panel, which stands above the high altar in the church of the same Abbey, by John of Mabuse an excellent painter: to which panel a like the whole of Christianity has none: to see which Albert Dürer (commonly wont to be called Albordur) the German came from Antwerp into Zealand: who praised that painting vehemently, saying that in these Belgian provinces he had never seen anything like it. That it still survives somewhere, withdrawn in the furious storm of the Iconoclasts in the year 1566, on the 21st of August, who raged through the churches of Middelburg, I would scarcely dare to hope; for if withdrawn it would have been put away, and afterward with the rest of the church furniture translated elsewhere. But John of Mabuse used colors tempered with water, which his other paintings elsewhere show: namely in the church of Tongerlo the notable Crucifixion, and the Adoration of the Magi above the altar of the court chapel at Brussels.

[77] XXIV Cornelius vander Goes, in the year 1535. Him too the transcriber of our Catalogue had passed over; This one too is passed over in the Catalogue but by an irrefragable testimony shows him to us the Emperor Charles V, in a diploma of the year 1536, far ampler than the one we cited at the name of his predecessor, like it inscribed in the Belgian vernacular on parchment still originally whole, with his seal hung as Count of Holland and Zealand in red wax: whose tenor here preserved in Latin, I think will be welcome. Charles by the grace of God Emperor of the Romans etc. (which in his other edicts everywhere at hand in a long series of Kingdoms and Dominions anyone may easily find) We make known to all, that, saving our right and that of any other whomsoever, we have handed over and granted, it is drawn from a diploma of Charles V, we hand over and grant, by these our patent letters, to our dear and beloved in Christ, the Lord Cornelius vander Goes, by the grace of God Abbot of Middelburg, all the subscribed parts of the fiefs, demesnes, lands, houses and tithes, which our late beloved kinsman the Lord Maximilian of Burgundy, Abbot and predecessor of the aforesaid Lord Cornelius, while he lived, received from us in fief, in our Counties of Holland and Zealand, to be held from us and our heirs and posterity Counts and Countesses of Holland and Zealand, by the aforesaid Lord Cornelius vander Goes and his Successor Abbots, by the same feudal right, by which our aforesaid kinsman Maximilian and his predecessor Abbots

of Middelburg held the same; according to the tenor of the other letters, grants and appointments in our Register thereupon preserved.

[78] First in 's Heeren-Arens-kerke sixteen measures of demesne land; him investing with the same fiefs which the predecessors possessed, in 's Heeren-Boidins-kerke nineteen measures and thirty-five rods or perches of demesne, likewise in Domburg, two hundred forty-nine measures and one hundred and seventeen perches of demesne. Item in Oostkapelle above the blown-away Dunes, twenty-five hundreds and forty-seven measures; and two hundred and forty-three perches of demesne. Item that which there was of the children of William, late [son] of James, twenty-seven measures and forty-eight perches of demesne with a half. Item in 's Heer-Aerts-kerke fifty-nine measures of demesne with a half. Item in Kruiningen, in North Beveland, one hundred twenty-three measures and fifty perches of demesne. Item in Geersdyck four hundred forty-nine measures, and one hundred ninety-four seven-foot perches of demesne: and in Wissekercke one hundred and twenty measures.

[79] The aforesaid divisions of lands all make together three thousand five hundred and forty-one measures, two hundred forty-seven perches of demesne; by reason of which the aforesaid Abbot owes us, according to the right and custom of precaria, first by reason of four hundred fifty-four measures of demesne, for each relief estimated at two hundred measures twenty-five pounds of Black Tournois, which for five hundred fifty-four measures of demesne make fifty-six pounds and five shillings of Black Tournois. There remain therefore still three thousand and ninety-one measures, and two hundred thirty-seven perches of demesne, for which he owes us at each relief, twenty pounds of Black Tournois, making the sum of three hundred nine pounds and five shillings of Black Tournois. Item the Tithe in North Beveland in Zoetelinckercke, at an annual rent of 370 pounds, which is called Caetkens-thiende, for which he owes us twenty English shillings; which make five pounds six shillings and eight denarii of Black Tournois. Item the house in Westhove, with the land pertaining to it for which he owes, from the precaria for the red falcon, five Holland pounds: which all together make three hundred seventy pounds, sixteen shillings, and eight denarii of Black Tournois, each to be estimated at the rate of forty Groschen of our Flemish money, and five Holland pounds to be estimated at a like price.

[80] Which sum the aforesaid Abbot is bound to pay for our uses, into the hands of our Questor of Bewesterschelde in Zealand, Adrian vanden Heetvelde; who is obligated to render us thereof an accurate account, in the place and manner which shall please us. And by means of the receipt of the same Questor, we absolve the said Abbot from the payment of that sum, and accepting his homage in the year 1536. or of any other receipt to be required. But in the person and name of the said Abbot, homage and the oath upon these he swore to us, Adrian van Poppendamme son of Cornelius; there being present at this act and presiding, as prefects of the feudal Court in Holland, Peter Bol, Auditor of the Chamber of accounts at The Hague; Cornelius Berthoudt, son of John; Peter Willems and Anthony le Burg and Barthold van Outena. In faith of which the present are signed with the Seal of our Feudal Court of The Hague hung to these. Given on the 22nd of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred thirty-six. And in the fold was written By the Emperor, at the relation of his Lieutenant and the feudal Prefects of Holland, and subscribed, Damas.

[81] XXV Florentius van Schoonhoven, in the year 1540, of whom we find in the fifth year after that one there was some litigation, in the Court of the Bishop of Cambrai, with the Prioress and Conventuals of Dulcis-vallis, the Official of the same Bishopric being deputed to examine and decide the controversy. Of the same at the year 1549 writes Reygersberg, In that very year on the 4th of March dies the Lord Florentius van Schoonhoven, Abbot of Middelburg, who in his time had many beautiful fabrics and buildings made, both in the church (as in the choir appears to all) and in the house of Westhoven in Walcheren.

[82] XXVI Matthew van Heeswyk, in the year 1549: of whom Reygersberg, About the same time in which Philip of Austria, The Abbot receives the oath of the Counts of Zealand. his father Charles ordering, was going round the Belgian Provinces, to be inaugurated their Prince; that is in the month of August or September of the aforesaid year; there was elected the Lord Matthew van Heeswyk, as Prelate and Abbot of Middelburg: a prudent and learned man, to whom may God grant all prosperous things in his rule… On the 20th of September, to the Prince entering the harbor there went out to meet him the Lord Maximilian of Burgundy, as Lieutenant of Holland and Zealand; the Prelate of Middelburg, and the Lord John van Cruninghe with the Estates of Zealand… and with great pomp led him into the church. There the Prelate performed the Office; and that finished, when the Estates of Zealand had proceeded into the area before their Town-hall, in a place prepared for it, before all the people, the Abbot received from the Prince the oath, and invested him as the 31st Count of Zealand. The same had been done in the year 1500 on the 16th of May, when Charles himself was likewise inaugurated at Middelburg, although Reygersberg narrating the matter at the aforesaid year did not mention the Prelate receiving the oath. For, as says John Blaeu in the Theater of Belgian cities, describing Middelburg, So great was the authority of the head of the monastery, and at the same time pre-eminence, that in the public assemblies of the Estates of the County of Zealand, he alone, in the name of the whole ecclesiastical Order, cast a vote. Reygersberg ends his Chronicle with certain acts of the year 1550: why he who in the year 1634 had it reprinted augmented with certain Annotations, Zacharias Roman, was unwilling or was forbidden to continue it up to his own times, he will easily divine, who shall reconsider the following defection of the Provinces from the King and the Catholic Religion.

§. IX. The first Bishop and Abbot of Middelburg, and the rest of the fortune of the monastery occupied by the Confederates together with the city.

[83] The Abbey is united to the new Bishopric XXVII Nicholas de Castro, of Louvain, Doctor of Sacred Theology, and in the church of St. John of Utrecht a Canon, already from the year 1559 was designated the first Bishop of Middelburg, and Abbot of the monastery already then vacant: yet not before the year 62 of that century did he receive consecration, and that at Mechelen from the first Archbishop of that city the Cardinal of Granvelle, on the feast of St. Stephen. But on the 4th day of the next January he was solemnly received at Middelburg, as in the ecclesiastical History of Belgium writes our Heribert Rosweyde. The cause of the delay was the difficulty with the people of Utrecht, and the first ordained is Nicholas a Castro in the year 1562 to whom from immemorial time Zealand had been subject with the title of Archdeaconry. But Nicholas received, soon put much effort into extirpating from his city the tares of heresies. In his time when provision was to be made for the monastery of Dulcis-vallis of a new Provost, to his Vicar at St. Mary's Nicholas expedited a mandate of this kind.

[84] he delegates to his Provost of the monastery, Nicholas de Castro, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See Bishop of Middelburg, and also Prelate or Superior of the monastery of Blessed Mary the Virgin, of the Premonstratensian Order, of the aforesaid city of Middelburg; to our beloved in Christ Brother Lambert Scyllinck, Provost of our aforesaid monastery, greeting in the Lord. Whereas hitherto before the Prelates of our aforesaid monastery, our predecessors, were and have been wont, to be present, together with the Prelate and Abbot of the monastery of St. Michael of the city of Antwerp, at the election, confirmation, and introduction of the Provost of the monastery of Dulcis-vallis in the island of Walcheren, of the aforesaid Premonstratensian Order, after the cession or death of the Provost of the same monastery, that Provostship being vacant in the manner premised or otherwise in whatever way, his place of presiding together with the solemnities and ceremonies in the premises and concerning them wont and accustomed to be done and applied.

[85] Hence it is that we, unwilling to neglect the right of our Prelacy, incorporated to our Bishopric; in the election of the Provost of the Nuns of Vallis-dulcis. to You, fully confiding in the Lord in your legality, providence, discretion and proved foresight, commit, that in our stead and by our authority, by reason of our aforesaid Prelacy, at the said monastery of Dulcis-vallis, now vacant through the death of the religious man the Lord John de Heusden, the latest Provost and Rector of the same monastery, at the election, votes, and nomination, to be made anew of the future Provost of the aforesaid monastery of Dulcis-vallis, together with the Commissary of the Reverend Lord Abbot of St. Michael of Antwerp aforesaid, you may be able and avail to be present, and to supply our place in all things, as if we were present and personally present at the said election, votes and nomination; and all and singular other things to be done and procured, which in the aforesaid business shall be necessary or in any way opportune, we have thought full and entire power to be granted to you, as we commit and grant by these presents. Given at Middelburg, under our seal for causes, hung to the present, in the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred seventy, on the twenty-sixth day of the month of November. From this instrument I understand two things; first, that that nunnery, which from its origin had been a daughter of St. Michael of Antwerp, and thence in the year 1486 still had a Provost John de Weert, and soon an Abbot; in this century was under the disposition of the Abbot of Middelburg: then that the Bishop does not call himself Abbot, because for this he was never blessed, but simply Prelate; but left the domestic administration of the monastery to the Provost, which both at Tongerlo for the time was done, and even now is done at Afflighem.

[86] To the vigilance of this Bishop no doubt the city of Middelburg owed, The Bishop dies the city being besieged by the Geux in the year 1574, that from Royal obedience by itself it did not fall away, but forced by a long siege through surrender came into the hands and power of the rebels in the year 1574. But this last calamity he himself did not see, in this like St. Augustine, dying at his Hippo besieged by the Vandals. But he died, says Rosweyde in the year already said, on the 5th of June, and was buried in the choir of the Abbatial church. He some years before death, with the consent of his Chapter and of his chief Monks, a testament being made, had designated as successor to himself both of the Bishopric and of the Abbey the Lord John van Stryen: who therefore soon after his death was declared Prelate of Middelburg. But the city being soon surrendered, with the Clergy both secular and regular he was compelled to go out. a designated successor being left, Yet all the sacred and profane furniture, according to the pacts of surrender, he was permitted to carry off; I know not whether also the most beautiful Library, which to have been in the monastery notable above the rest, writes the aforepraised John Blaeu: unless he here perhaps looked to that, which Reygersberg said burned with the church in the year 1412.

[87] XXVIII John van Stryen, Licentiate of Sacred Theology, who an exile is consecrated in the year 1581, received his confirmation from Rome in the year 1577; and in the year 1581, on the 15th of August his Episcopal consecration in the church of the Minors at Namur, from the Bishop of that place Francis Wallon-capelle: but to enter into possession he was never able, the heretics holding the city: and at Louvain he spent the rest of his age, President of the College recently founded there by the King. He lived up to the end

nearly of that century: and to him succeeds Charles Philip de Rodoan, made in 1602 Bishop of Bruges: for at the beginning of the following one nominated Bishop and Prelate was Charles Philip de Rodoan, Benedictine Abbot of the monastery of Enham in Flanders: who, the restitution of the Middelburg Cathedra being despaired of, in the year 1602 about the month of June, was given to the people of Bruges as Bishop: yet he continued under the title of Administrator of Middelburg, to bear the care of those grounds and rights, which had not yet come into the power of the Confederates: and so there is had expedited by him power to Matthew Irselius Abbot of Antwerp, and Stephen van Wyk a citizen of Breda, to lease out a certain estate and the receipt of certain revenues in Steenbergen and Muninkhoven, and he continues to bear himself as Administrator. in the year 1607, on the 12th of July in the city of Mechelen. Meanwhile no better breeze breathed upon the affairs of the Catholics in Zealand: but heresy received into full possession, after its manner mixing sacred with profane, made of the Abbey the Court of the Estates of Zealand, and other places of public use.

[88] I return to the desolation of the monastery itself: because this was preceded two years before by the notable passion of the Martyrs (as they call them) of Gorcum, In the year 1572 two of the Religious, of whom two were sons of this Church, in the borders of Holland, in a village called Munster, that is Monastery, bearing the care of souls, the one as Pastor, the other as his Vicar. To their Canonization applauded, as said above, their Mother the Antwerp church: but the feast by decree of Clement X it keeps on the 9th of July, under this prayer at Mass and Office: O God, who hast adorned the glorious combat for thy faith of thy blessed Martyrs Hadrian and James and their Companions with the laurel of eternity: grant propitiously, that by their merits and intercession striving on earth, we may merit to be crowned with them in heaven. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ. The series of that Passion, not at hand to all, it pleases here to add, such as at Matins for the second Nocturn is recited by the Premonstratensians, distributed into three Lessons.

[89] The sixteenth century, memorable for the tumults of the Calvinian depravity, bore a notable example of Christian fortitude in Belgium. In the year one thousand five hundred seventy-two, nineteen Martyrs, commonly of Gorcum, in enduring torments, for asserting the real presence of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist, and the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, Hadrian of Beek and James Lacopius, the visible Head of the Church, singularly shone forth. These were chiefly Hadrian of Beek and James Lacopius, both Regular Canons of the sacred Premonstratensian Order, of the Abbey of Middelburg in Zealand. The former born in the town of Hilvarenbeek, in the Campine of Brabant; the latter, at Oudenaarde in Flanders. The former an exemplary and zealous Pastor in a village called Monastery, (in the borders of Holland, where the Meuse flows into the ocean) the latter Vicar of the same in the said Pastorate, notable in all things by no unequal zeal; in this more eminent, that they were assimilated to our Savior, by the ungrateful Jews bought for death for thirty denarii: taken by the Geux, but they, abandoned in peril of death, by the ungrateful subjects of their parish, to whom the Geux pirates (making gain from captives) offered these their Pastors for sale and to be redeemed for a cask of beer, worth thirty denarii. most constant in the assertion of the Eucharistic truth,

[90] But it behooved them too to be more happily compared with their holy Father Norbert. For as that holy Patriarch triumphed over the Sacramentarian heresy of Tanchelin; so these his sons over the Sacramentarian one of Calvin. For interrogated by the Calvinians and vexed, upon the real presence of Christ the Lord in the Eucharist; demonstrating the truth of the matter from the Gospel of John and the words of the Apostle Paul, for the reward of victory they carried off insults, beatings, scourges, and foul prisons; while the Calvinians, struck dumb, could oppose nothing, except the said syllogisms of impious hands. Which considering, to his own reproach, Count Lumey, a most impious tyrant, no longer desiring to slay bodies, but souls, by promises and the allurements of words strove to weaken the fortitude of the Martyrs, before the rest attacking with soft words James Lacopius; because both his age was such (namely of nearly thirty years) and the grace of his speech and countenance, which could move even a tyrannic mind, by the hidden force of nature, to commiseration. But neither by promises, nor by terrors did the fortitude of Christ's Martyrs yield: and although Lumey objected to Lacopius his past defection from the faith; he answered Lumey imperturbably and in a Christian manner, that to those loving God all things, even sins themselves, cooperate unto good; confidently indeed, because with the highest hatred and grief of soul, the things which he had wrongly written against the Church, with his own hands he had publicly cast into the fire.

[91] The wicked Lumey, thinking himself despised, kindled with headlong anger, all, two by two, together with 17 others, bound, he orders to be led outside the gates of the town of Brielle (whither from Dordrecht they had been carried) namely to be driven by a noose onto a beam, as by a punishment for Christ's Priests more infamatory. The rest of the fellow-captives were thirteen, Religious of various Orders, and four secular Priests; who for the other dogma of faith, the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, the visible Head of the Church, stood immovable. In that manner in a certain hut on an oblong beam they were strangled by a noose, wondrously comforted by the exhortations of Hadrian of Beek; while in his speech, countenance, morals, there shone forth with piety a notable modesty, and in enduring injuries a fortitude worthy of a Martyr. But his Confrere James (since for further hanging there was no place on the beam) was hung on a ladder; they are killed by hanging. no doubt Divine Providence acting, that by that ladder, as if designated in the type of the other Jacob the Patriarch, with the Angels he might ascend heaven. So therefore these two men, wholly white and ruddy and chosen out of thousands, washed their white stoles in the blood of the Lamb, and excellently empurpled their white Order, glorious after death with miracles.

[92] The monastery being desolated by the departure of the Religious, what was the fortune, The last of the exiles Irselius, Abbot of Antwerp. both of these, and of the sacred and profane furniture, the license of carrying off which the Governor had stipulated for either Clergy, making the surrender of the city; can somehow be gathered from a twin instrument, among the acts of Matthew Irselius, formerly a Religious of Middelburg, but in the year 1614 made Abbot of Antwerp. The first, inscribed to Maurice Prince of Orange, Duke of the Confederates, and rendered from the vernacular tongue into Latin, sounds thus. With all reverence represents the Lord Matthew van Yrssel, Prelate of the Abbey of St. Michael of Antwerp, that he has understood, that in the treasury of the lately deceased most noble Lord Philip William Prince of Nassau (this one was a Catholic and Maurice's firstborn brother, in the year 1618 he asks from Orange had died at Brussels in the year 1618 on the 20th of February) is kept a certain altar-pall, worked with silk, gold and gems, on which by embroidery-art is interwoven the Lord's Supper with the Wedding at Cana, once pertaining to the Premonstratensian Abbey of Middelburg; thence withdrawn, when the Lord John van Stryen Bishop there, together with the Religious of the same Abbey, was ordered to go out thence, and betook himself to the city of Breda.

[93] But this when it was being taken, by Maurice, by the memorable stratagem of a ship bearing turfs in the year 1590, the precious altar-pall intercepted at Breda, the very altar-pall was discovered to lie hidden in the house of a certain citizen, at the Castle of Breda, where the aforesaid late Lord Philip William of Nassau, by the twelve-year truce, begun in the year 1609, returned into that his city, found it, and used it in his chapel: which thus passed into oblivion, no one of his household knowing whose it was, no one even seeking it. But now since the said Supplicant, at the time when the Religious Premonstratensians were sent out from Middelburg, was professed of that monastery; made Abbot of St. Michael of Antwerp, he would gladly use that pall for the ministry of his church. For there survives no other of those, who having gone out from Middelburg could pretend any right to it, to be given back to him, as having the nearest right to it. except himself: and therefore he beseeches his Excellency, who neither uses it nor will use it, that he be willing to command the one keeping it, to hand it over to the supplicant; who with his Religious will be obliged to pray for the safety of his Excellency.

[94] The other instrument concerns the immovable goods, which, because situated in Brabant, had not yet come into the power of the heretics; The same to hear the accounts of the goods situated in Brabant, and is to Irselius himself written in the vernacular thus, as here I render. In Latin, We John Drusius, Abbot of Park, Vicar of the Most Reverend Lord Abbot of Prémontré and General of his Order, and also deputed by the Court for the preservation of the goods of the monastery of Middelburg; commit and make full power to the Reverend Lord, the Lord Matthew Irselius, Abbot of St. Michael of Antwerp, to receive, annotate, and conclude the accounts of the honest man Stephen van Wyck, to be rendered concerning the administration of the same, conducted by commission of the Most Reverend Lord John van Stryen, is deputed in the year 1628. and the Most Reverend Lord Charles Philip de Rodoan, Bishops of Middelburg; and also of our predecessor the Lord Francis van Vlierden, the See being vacant, by his Catholic Majesty deputed for the temporalities of that monastery, situated in the territory of Steenbergen, Wyk, and others around, to be preserved; and that without prejudice to anyone, and without obligation of supplying or paying that which after the accounts concluded could be due to the aforesaid Stephen van Wyck, as expended more than received; saving however his right to demand it back in time and place, as it shall seem to him. Done at Brussels on the 3rd of June 1628: In faith of which I have subscribed these and had them fortified with our small seal. ✠ John Abbot of Park.

[95] The form and manner of the old Church and Abbey of Middelburg it is possible somehow to know, The form of the present Church and Abbey from the later figure of the place; whose Southern aspect conveniently enough offers the Scenography of the city of Middelburg, in the year 1651 inserted into the Theater of Belgian Cities of John Blaeu; which figure thence taken here I represent. Distinctly enough here you see the old walls of the monastery toward the North drawn round the space of the once monastic garden, now turned into an arboretum for walking; and also of the old cemetery on the other part. converted to profane uses. But whether they comprehend the whole ground of the old Abbey, those ways which now are seen to run round it; or whether, new ones being drawn on one or other part, it has been truncated here and there, will determine some old delineation of the city, if anywhere it survives. In this more recent one, it is also to be seen the new Town-hall or Palace of the City, of which I made mention above, with an ample marketplace before it, near enough to the Abbey. The interior appearance of the Church, even today fair enough, however stripped of all sacred ornaments, perhaps will give to be seen the new Chronicle of Zealand, which I understand is at the press, to be adorned with many plates, if indeed in these there be a more distinct appearance of things as they now are. Meanwhile I offer it to you from a larger plate, representing the whole area, set before the (as now they call it) Court of Zealand, and planted with trees, which in the upper little plate still stood stripped of them: as also more entire was then beheld

the whole front of the church; of which now nothing else appears toward the West, than the face of the middle nave more narrowly compressed between the new buildings built up on either side.