ON S. FLORA THE VIRGIN, OF THE ORDER OF S. JOHN OF JERUSALEM,
AT BEAULIEU IN THE DIOCESE OF CAHORS IN GAUL.
A.D. MCCXCIX
Collection, from Jacobus Bosius, Historiographer of that Order.
Flora the Virgin, of the Order of S. John of Jerusalem, at Cahors in Gaul (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
Not only with men distinguished in fortitude, but also with women illustrious in sanctity, the Equestrian Order of S. John of Jerusalem glories. For to these chiefly was derived the care of the Hospital, The location of the place is sought, whence that one had the beginning of its institute; since the work of the men was more necessary for war. A specimen of these was given us in Etruria on XXVIII May S. Ubaldesca: now another is offered from Gaul, where in the Cahors diocese the same Order is said to have a hospital, called Beaulieu: which since the topographical table of that Province does not express, I do not presume to investigate by conjectures, but ask to be more distinctly taught by those whose interest it is.
[2] The notice of the name and at the same time of the above-titled Saint was given to us by Jacobus Bosius, together with her image, which you see here printed in the margin, with this end at least, that he may exhibit to be seen the habit of those Religious women, scarcely known elsewhere. For the above-praised Bosius, when in the year MDXCIV he had taken care to publish at Rome the History of his Order in two Italian Tomes, to which eight years later a third was added; from those same two first tomes he compiled a small book, similarly in Italian, which he called: "Images of the Saints and Blessed of the sacred Religion of S. John of Jerusalem, Bosius's Opusculum on the Saints of the Order: with most brief compendium of lives and miracles, taken from the first and second part of the Histories of the same Order." Which though it be true of most: it is not however true of S. Flora, the last of all here, of whom there is nothing there, and who must have come to the author after the Tomes were edited. Our Society has a college at Cahors; wherefore I wrote there several times, but besides the promise of diligence, in making the place of the aforesaid Hospital, Life of S. Flora three times edited in French, to have from there more distinct notice, I have brought back nothing; it was however signified to me that some Life is held printed at Paris. This therefore I diligently sought, and received transcribed by the care of Claudius Castellanus, Canon of Paris, an assiduous helper in this work; and at the same time I learned, that it was printed in the French Legend, first in the year MDCXXXVII, then in the year MDCLXXXVII: but receiving and reading, I found nothing else, than a simple translation from Bosius; with the notice, that the Booklet of Bosius itself is held wholly in the same year MDCLXXXVII in French, printed or reprinted at Rouen. Omitting therefore further inquiry, take Bosius's words, from the Italian immediately.
[3] here given in Latin. The splendid crown of the Saints and Blessed of this sacred Religion will worthily be closed by the blessed and most devout Virgin S. Flora, who from this mortal to immortal life passed, in about the thirty-eighth year of her age, of Christ one thousand two hundred ninety-nine, in the monastery, called the Hospital, of the town of Beaulieu, of the Cahors diocese, dependent on the Priory of S. Aegidius in Provence, likewise of this Religion. God honored her with many miracles in life, in death, and after death. with notice of cult. The body is venerated there with great veneration, and her feast is celebrated most festively by frequent people on the eleventh of June. The name S. Flora is said to have been imposed on her, on the occasion of a miracle, by which for the loaves, which in a great dearth of grain she was bearing to the poor, when the Prioress asked what she carried in her bosom, she showed roses and flowers. She is usually painted with the Rosary of the Order, kneeling, origin of the name, before an Angel offering with one hand a flowery wreath, with the other showing the seat prepared for her in the heavens, to which God the Father also seems to invite her, appearing in the clouds. Beneath a white pallium, marked with the Cross such as the Knights themselves also use, she is clothed in a red tunic, duly girded, on whose breast a white cross shines. and color of vestment. Red color of tunic our Nuns used to use, who in this convent still today live to thirty-eight professed; but Rhodes being lost, the red color was changed for them into black. Thus far Bosius; not sufficiently explaining, how ancient such an image is.