John of Sahagún

OF ST. JOHN OF SAHAGÚN, PRIEST OF THE ORDER OF THE HERMITS OF ST. AUGUSTINE,

AT SALAMANCA IN CASTILE.

1479.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

John of Sahagún, Priest of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, at Salamanca in Castile (St.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

§. I. On the age of the Saint, and John of Seville, the writer of the first Life.

[1] At Salamanca, the ancient city of Castile on the river Tormes (which the University of Studies, erected or restored at the beginning of the 15th century, rendered most celebrated in the whole world) there was, from the year 1202, a church dedicated to St. Peter. The Augustinian Convent at Salamanca, Into the possession of this, in the year 1377, the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, having been introduced, joined to it a Convent, named from this holy Doctor. This, reduced to the norm of the old observance in the year 1453, abounded in so great an abundance of distinguished men, that Aegidius d'Avila, in his Ecclesiastical Theater of the year 1618, numbers as having come forth from it twelve Confessors, illustrious for sanctity; eight, shining with Archiepiscopal or Episcopal dignity; three, of the sacred Confessions of Kings and Emperors; parent of illustrious men, six, of the sermons of the same; twenty-five Provincials, two Reformers of Religious, seventeen Writers, and fourteen public Professors in the Academy of Salamanca. Among the twelve Confessors, to most of whom, without any public cult, only the private piety of the citizens and brothers ascribed the title of Blessedness; to a higher grade of ecclesiastical veneration than the rest had long since ascended, and of two Saints, John and Thomas: John of Sahagún, although, 32 years after himself, the younger St. Thomas of Villanova was solemnly inscribed in the Catalogue of the Saints; but he was received into the same Convent in the tenth year from the reformation undertaken, and died holily, 48 years before the aforesaid St. Thomas entered there.

[2] Of the ancient cult of this John, not only does the Life with miracles make us certain, written in Spanish about the year 1498, likewise of the Blessed John of Seville by a man of scarcely inferior holiness, and the same Vicar General, Brother John of Seville, with a view to soliciting canonization, through the mediation of the Great Captain of the Spanish soldiery (as they called him), Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. To him namely that John wrote nine Epistles on that subject, which Thomas de Herrera inserted in the History of the aforesaid Convent, published in the year 1652, from p. 57 to p. 72, already before praised in this volume on p. 392 for another distinguished work, published eight years earlier, under the title of the Augustinian Alphabet. The Life of such great authority found in such a history, in the very year in which the Canonization was celebrated, Brother Antoninus de Witte, an inhabitant of the Convent of Brussels, turned into our Belgian tongue, which his version, when he had kindly caused us to have it, recently rendered from Spanish into German, from which we should form a Latin one; I excused myself, saying that it was not our custom to prepare versions from any other language than that in which a thing is written: since it is most true what is commonly said; "Waters are more purely drunk from the very source." and this to be given here from German into Latin.

But he, for I know not what cause, had set his mind not to let the book of Herrera go from him as far as Antwerp; and another, sought from Spain and sent to us, perished in a storm; and the Life was required for the press. It pleased the good man, therefore, solemnly asserting that what he found printed by Herrera had been rendered by him word for word, to have greater credit than I myself had; and to give the Latin from the Flemish version; in which, if anything is found less rightly set down, and not sufficiently conformed to the Spanish original, let the Reader expect it to be corrected in the supplement, when we have received another copy of the aforesaid book from the Spaniards.

[3] I return to the author of the Life, John of Seville, concerning whom from the old book of Professions Herrera thus writes: "He is the Vicar general, namely of those who are called Reformed, and who wrote the Life of St. John of Sahagún." Valaurius, to be praised below, adds to him the surname "de Orozco": and concerning the same his Belgian Interpreter thus speaks. When the Life written by him, with a view to the canonization of the Blessed John of Sahagún, was to be presented at Rome; there was likewise offered, for confirming the faith, the Life of John of Seville himself, not written in ancient times (for Herrera, having stayed for some while in that Convent of Salamanca, and intent on collecting material for his work, found no such Life) but recently compiled: which having been read, Pope Clement VIII said: "When for John of Sahagún such effort is made, why is not equal diligence labored for John of Seville?" That would indeed be done, if equal documents were extant for both. But the difference is immense: for of this latter John, if there was once any cult, it has wholly vanished; and that there was any is not presumed, except from a benign conjecture, and that an uncertain one.

[4] Of it thus is read in Herrera: "There lay in the chapel of St. Laurence, of the monastery of Salamanca, [whose, or another similar one's, bones were found in the year 1605 under the altar,] the bones of a certain pious man laid away: which in the year 1605, when I was living at Salamanca, and the altar was being reduced to a better form, saw the light: but the letters which were written within on a slip, the paper vanishing, vanished. Various and confused was the tradition of the elders… We placed the precious pledges between the chapels of the Mother of God and of Nicholas of Tolentino, and added this eulogy engraved on the stone in golden letters. 'The pious remains of the mortality of an unknown Augustinian Brother (whom the ancient Fathers in our age reckoned to be the Venerable Brother John of Seville, or the devout Brother Martin of Extarrono, each a man eminent in sanctity, were translated in 1637. and a Pupil and Prelate of this Salamanca monastery) are covered by this stone. They lay once under the altar itself of the altar sacred to St. Laurence, until the year 1605; in which, found, they gave great traces of the piety with which those ancient Fathers venerated the Relics of this most holy man; whose bones, and other smaller pledges, they placed under Christ hidden in the Eucharist, that even thus the Son-of-man might have where to sweetly recline his head, translated hither in the year 1637, await the future change.'"

§. II. At what age St. John came to Salamanca, and afterward to the habit.

[5] He who in the year 1463 received the habit In that Life, which I said was set forth by John of Seville in the form of letters, as it is indeed now had (for the original manuscripts are nowhere found any longer), in no. 10 it is expressly said, that the Saint was received to the habit in the year 1463, and in the following year to Profession: which is again asserted in no. 29, and it is added, that he lived in Religion to sixteen or seventeen years, until he departed life in the year 1479. and died in it in 1479 The span of his whole age is nowhere expressed: which great authority and not lighter reasons persuade [us] to make greater, than the authors of the more recent Epitaph wrote, asserting him to have died in the 49th year of his life; whence it would follow that he was born in the year 1430, which the Belgian interpreter noted from Castelbranco. But so small an age of the dying man cannot stand with that which the Saint must have had, when, thirteen years before he took the habit, he came to Salamanca in the year 1450, already a Priest and a celebrated preacher. This span of thirteen years, however, the more recent Spanish life expressly notes, which Brother Augustine Antolinius published, Provincial of the same Order, and in the University of Salamanca holder of the Chair for the prelections of sacred scripture, afterward Bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo, and finally Archbishop of Compostela: who dedicated that Life in the year 1605 to the Lord Francisco de Sandoval, Duke of Lerma. For indeed from it, chapter 11, it is gathered that the time during which the Saint lived in the College of St. Bartholomew was about four years; and that in these words. "The Saint entered the College in the year 1450, on the 16th of February: but after he went out thence, he stayed in the city of Salamanca about ten years, as the Cardinal Antonianus and the holy man John of Seville report: then he took the Augustinian habit in the year 1463, as is established from his profession."

[6] Thus far Antolinius, by whom the two writers alleged, more assert it) one a contemporary, the other writing in the year 1600, of whom below, if they only mentioned the Salamanca stay indefinitely, nor noted the year of his reception to the College of the Saint; the whole faith of those 13 or 14 years resolves into other monuments which Antolinius had and followed, and not he alone, but others too. For at the same time as he, and in the same city of Salamanca, Aegidius Gonsalvus d'Avila was writing and publishing his Salamanca history, into which from John of Seville and other notices of his time he wove the life of the Blessed John of Sahagún; ending indeed with the aforesaid Epitaph, but yet expressly affirming on p. 381, that, having gone out from the College, he dwelt ten years with a certain Canon Peter Sancius. At the same time also Julian de Armendaris wrote in Spanish verse: who although he too, deceived by the aforenoted Epitaph, said the Saint was born in the year 1430, yet defined the time of the Salamanca stay before his entrance the same as Antolinius: as also the same defines the Lord Francisco Ruiz de Vergara, in the Life of the Lord Diego de Anaya Archbishop of Seville, chapter 20, where are recounted the chief of those who flourished in the Bartholomew College founded by him, and on p. 106 is placed the eulogy of St. John.

[7] Meanwhile an age less than that which the consensus of so many writers requires in defining the Salamanca stay, is expressed even under the effigy, which, as genuine from the prototype, Peter a Mariz the Portuguese piously vowed, he is not rightly believed to have died at Lisbon on the 15th of March in the year 1609, and prefixed sculpted to his very long History of St. John of Sahagún, dedicated to the aforenamed Duke of Lerma. And he indeed, in the course of chapter 16, alleging from Antolinius the Chronicle of the College, where the year of reception is noted as 1450; saw well enough that it could not be, that the Saint then came to Salamanca, already before ordained Priest, unless against the Canons he was made Priest being only nineteen years old; yet he had not enough courage, that, moved by that argument, he should change anything, although in chapter 5 he had premised, that John lived altogether six years in the Bishopric of Burgos, before he allowed himself to be promoted thither. What then? He prefers to call Antolinius into suspicion of error, suspecting lest he read 1450 for 1460 or some intermediate year. But that Antolinius read nothing wrongly, Vergara, a most certain witness, and having before his eyes the very Chronicle of the Bartholomew College, irrefragably proves. He acted more prudently, in the 49th year of his age, born in 1429: and was altogether silent about the year of the Salamanca migration, who, from the Processes adduced for the Canonization, in this very year, collected and published the Life in Italian, James Antoninus Valauri, Doctor of Theology, and Priest at St. Jerome of Charity at Rome. But this knot being dissembled, the same Valaurius without scruple defined 49 years of age for John; concerning which, however, that a few years ago nothing was defined, Antolinius, a most faithful writer, sufficiently indicates by his silence; as one presuming to assert nothing which he did not find in ancient writings; but freely bringing into suspicion the things received only through tradition.

of fiction, as will appear below. He has in chapter 38 a Latin inscription, to be referred to below in no. 37 of the longer Acts; he does not have the Spanish one, placed together with that in the year 1570; doubtless being doubtful about the age, which is expressed in the Spanish, not in the Latin.

[8] As for the rest, those Authors, writing in the popular tongue, deservedly abstained from Chronological scruples, but it must be said that he was at least ten years older, to be proposed before the undiscerning common people; lest from one error, which perhaps crept in through the course of time, prejudice should be created for the rest of the history; and this very thing can avail to excuse the Belgian Interpreter. To us, intent on the satisfaction of the Learned and the illustration of history, it is not permitted to dissemble such things, however some might wish; nor is it usually grievous to lovers of truth. Certainly our Society (as I remember to have insinuated elsewhere) gratefully accepted that the error detected by Peter Possinus in the age of our St. Francis Xavier be corrected, and that he be demonstrated ten years younger than he had hitherto been believed. Why therefore should I fear, lest the Augustinian Order take it ill, if I strive to demonstrate the hitherto undiscussed age of their St. John to be at least ten years greater than the more recent writers have handed down, following older and more certain monuments? I say therefore, that in the year 1419, and so born about the year 1419, or even earlier, he was born, and instructed in his fatherland in the arts of Grammar and Dialectic, and came to Burgos about twenty years old; and admitted into the Episcopal household, spent there some years, say five or six, in the study of Decretals and Theological principles, before he was initiated into the Priesthood, being at least 25 years old. Then he began to make speeches to the people; and not until the fame of his distinguished talent in speaking was confirmed, did he pass to Salamanca, already in his thirties, and older than that, made a Priest about 1445. in the year 1450; and received among the Bartholomew Colleagues, having spent three years among them, took the grade of Bachelor, and furthermore spent a decade in giving sermons and promoting his Theological studies; and so came to the Order being at least 44 years old: which was a just age for discharging, soon from the very novitiate, the offices of Master of novices, and others, which will be treated of in the course of the history.

[9] that he migrated to Salamanca in the year 1450, So the Saint died about sixty years old; or even five years older; if you wish to suspect, that he was 49 years old when he came to the Order: but that it happened by error, that the years he numbered when he left the world, were thought to have been had long after, when he departed from this life; and perhaps entered the Order in the 49th year of his age. and then it could be reckoned, that he stayed about fifteen years at Burgos, before he came to Salamanca; the fitter now for managing great matters, the more advanced he was in age and experience.

§. III. On the cult of St. John, gradually promoted up to the Beatification; and the Lives then written, and finally the Canonization that followed.

[10] Begun to be marked out by a miracle in the year 1488: Of St. John of Sahagún (that I may take the surname from the usage of the common people) all things are more certain except the years of his age. For not only is it established, that soon after his death miracles began to be wrought, and his intercession invoked at the sepulcher by very many; but also nine years later, in the year of Christ 1487, they were described under Notarial attestation, just as the Writer John saw most of them with his own eyes. To this Herrera seems to look when he says: "Processes were formed of the life and miracles in the year 1488"; but I doubt whether in another manner than has already been said. This seems more certainly asserted of the years 1525 and 1542: would that those processes were still had, about to give us notice of more of the miracles done during that half-century. But these duly completed and signed, Processes begun in the year 1525 by the authority of the Ordinaries as it is fair to believe (and these were the Lord Francisco de Bobadilla, and Roderick de Mendoza), it was acted concerning his relation into the Catalogue of the Saints in the year 1545 and 1550, when St. Thomas of Villanova, a pupil of the same Convent of Salamanca, made Archbishop of Valencia, in sermon 2 on the Sacrament of the altar, speaking of our John; "who at this time," he says, "with the wondrous zeal and distinguished piety of the people of Salamanca, on account of the innumerable miracles which are continually wrought by him, is venerated." But it was acted under Paul III; and he dying, there was progress in the cause under the years 1574, 75 and 1600, and this at last was obtained from the Apostolic See, that John be inscribed in the number of the Blessed. resumed in 1545, It was also granted on the 19th of June in the year 1601, that on the 12th of June in the Salamanca monastery, by the Augustinian Brothers, together with the Collegians, Chaplains, and Persons of the great College of St. Bartholomew, the divine Office be performed annually concerning him. The favor was afterward extended to the province of Castile; then, and the Beatification made in 1551, at the prayers of Philip III King of the Spains, to the whole Augustinian Order, by letters given at Frascati, on the 15th of October, in the year 1603; and finally to the towns of Cea and Sahagún: all which were grants of Clement VIII.

[11] the life soon published by A. Antolinez At the same time, namely at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th, Brother Augustine Antolinius praised above had extended the Life taken from John of Seville into the form of a just book; with some things added that were certainly ascertained by him, of deeds before death, and several of deeds after death. But that Life he did not publish until he was made Provincial in the year 1605. And ten years after, in the year of Christ 1615, Brother Paul Fraxinelli, an Augustinian and public Lector of sacred Theology in that Academy of Bologna, published it at Bologna, turned from Spanish into Italian; rendered into Italian by Fraxinelli, adding nothing from elsewhere, nay not even knowing perhaps, that Peter de Mariz, a Portuguese Priest, had extended the History of the same Blessed at Lisbon, through various pious and curious digressions, into quite a large volume, and had published it in the year 1609: whose authority to us, in those things which he adds of himself, is the less than that of Antolinius, the further he was from the genuine sources. And these indeed are the Authors of that time, whom we have seen. But Antolinius also cites Silvinus Cardinal Antonianus; who, Roman by fatherland, endowed with the Purple in the year 1592 by Clement VIII, died before Marizius brought to light the Life written by himself. Since therefore Antonianus is said to have written many things, both bound by feet in verse, and in loose oration in prose, and also to have published some orations, it is credible, that one of these, spoken and printed at the Beatification itself at Rome, Antolinius had, and cites in chapter 33 under the title of the Latin Life. This too it would be welcome to us to see; if perhaps he drew from the Processes hitherto produced, and not easily about to reach us, something passed over by Antolinius.

[12] in Latin by Cardinal Antonianus, and in Spanish Verse by Armendaris Marizius also repeatedly praises the Songs, by which Julian de Armendariz celebrated the same Blessed. This man, of Salamanca origin, we read in the Spanish Library of Nicholas Antonio, published in popular verse at Valladolid in the year 1603, "The Eulogies of St. John of Sahagún": but in vain does Nicholas doubt whether this is a work different from the Life, which he published in similar verse at Rome in the year 1611; for otherwise that Life would be later than the work of Marizius. We have that Life divided into ten Songs, and reprinted at Barcelona in the year 1622, which the Duke of Alcalá, the Royal Lieutenant, testifies was first printed at Salamanca; in a second edition perhaps; for the first seems altogether to have been taken care of at Valladolid (this was the Pincia of the ancients), for there it is read approved in the year 1602. In this the Author premises, that all things were composed by him after he had recovered from a certain venomous affliction, for which, endured through eighteen years, neither in Spain nor in Italy could a remedy be found among the physicians consulted about it; but that goads were added to him to pursue the work, because the city of Salamanca his fatherland had John as Patron; and this one he had chosen for himself in the year 1602, on the 8th of June. It was therefore not a work of long labor, and was given to light two years earlier, although composed at the same time at which Antolinius composed his.

[13] We have therefore, besides John of Seville, now three Authors, from whom, but chiefly from Antolinius, George Maigret, from whom, and from Marieta, Maigret wrote in French, Prior of the Augustinians of Tournai, and Doctor of Sacred Theology at Louvain, professes that he wrote the Life of the saint in French, which he published at Tournai ten years before the Italian edition of Fraxinelli. A fourth Author for Maigret cannot seem to be Jerome Roman, although Marizius too alleges him, as one who inserted the life of St. John into his Ecclesiastical History of Spain: for this and several others of his manuscripts never published, that one dying about the year 1597, Antolinius possessed, who could have lent the Life transcribed thence to Marizius. A fourth therefore for Maigret would be John Marieta the Dominican, who in Part 3 of his History of the Saints of Spain, p. 67, inserted a very brief Life of the Blessed John, and published it at Cuenca in the year 1595, rendered into Latin by Baxius: alleging in the margin a certain Zama, from whose book 14 chapter 26 he received it, but unknown to Antonio Nicholas the author of the Spanish Library; whom however I would think Marieta was not much older than. But the book of Maigret Nicasius Baxius, Vicar of the Augustinian monastery, made Latin and published with Antwerp types in the year 1625. the aforesaid also used by Vergara in 1661. Add to these the eulogy inserted in the Life of the Lord Diego de Anaya praised above in no. 6: but that book came forth at Madrid in the year 1661: whose Author, the Lord Francisco Ruiz de Vergara y Alava, is entitled Knight of the militia of St. James and of the Royal Majesty, to whom it is inscribed, councilor in the supreme Senate of Castile.

[14] He, about to adorn at once the aforesaid eulogy and his book, an effigy added, not only, having prefixed St. Bartholomew at the front of the book, set here and there the Blessed John of Sahagún and Alfonso Tostatus, in the Collegial habit; but moreover took care to have him sculpted thus on a whole folio, with the title of true effigy. But I do not dare to receive and exhibit it with him, having seen there the effigy of Philip IV, so different from the lineaments of the royal face most well known to the common people, that one would wish to believe nothing of its sculptor concerning anyone's likeness. No more do I dare to trust the effigy which Antolinius prefixed to the Life published by himself; for one who expressed the Saint not in the old habit of the Order, but in a more recent one accommodated to his own age, ought not to be believed to have received it from an ancient prototype. Marizius took care to have another sculpted, most unlike in face and habit, but a more probable other one we here give: from a vow, as he says, with this epigraph: "The true effigy of St. John de Sahagún, or rather the Archetype." Of this therefore receive the copy, restricted to a smaller form. Allow also that in no. 6 of the longer Life, about to express the Saint in the old habit of the Bartholomew Collegians, found in Vergara on p. 52, I bid the sculptor reproduce the same lineaments.

[15] Herrera ends his eulogy of the Blessed John thus: "May God grant, and finally in the year 1690, Valaurius from the Processes in Italian, that the Church may venerate a man, illustrious for such great merits and renowned for so many miracles, after so many years adorned with due honor, the Church which grows rich by the number of the Saints, is increased by their example, and exults in their glory." So he in his Augustinian Alphabet, which we have completed only in the sixth year after it had begun to be printed, in the year of Christ 1644. To accumulate more writers of the same and other Orders on this subject, there is no need: for of all these there is none who could teach us anything new; except the last, James Antony Valaurius, of whom I have spoken above, then writing, when Pope Alexander VIII heard the wish of Herrera, common to the whole Augustinian Order and the Spanish Monarchy, the Canonization of St. John being celebrated, in the year 1690 on the 16th of October. And nothing now remains, except that the Bull of Canonization be published, and the name inscribed in the Roman Martyrology. Meanwhile from the aforesaid Antolinius, Marizius, and Valaurius we shall gather fuller Acts, especially after death, to be subjoined to the ancient Life.

LIFE

By the Author Father John of Seville, described in Spanish and in the form of Letters.

John of Sahagún, Priest of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, at Salamanca in Castile (St.)

BY JOHN OF SEVILLE.

PROLOGUE

Explaining the intention of the writer.

To the Duke Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, Great Captain of war etc., John of Seville.

Most illustrious Lord.

[1] Prompt to execute the command of your noble Clarity; moved also by the prayers of her Excellency, At the request of two daughters of King Ferdinand, the most exalted Lady Maria of Aragon, Prioress of the Royal monastery of Our Lady of Graces, of the Order of our great Father Augustine outside the walls of Madrigal, in the kingdom of Castile; stimulated moreover by the requests of the sister of the same Lady Prioress, the Damsel Maria of Aragon, both daughters of the most powerful Catholic King of Spain, Naples, and Sicily, Ferdinand; looking also to this, that your Clarity may persevere in her magnanimity, by a disposition always inclined to do every great thing; I have undertaken, though unworthy and unfit, with a view to promoting the Canonization, to write the life and wonderful works of our John of Sahagún, that your Clarity may deign to promote the canonization of the same, a Religious of the Order of the Hermits of our great Father Augustine, and by his Profession a legitimate son of the most celebrated and holy Convent, established in the noble city of Salamanca; that, just as the merciful God deigned, on account of his great merits, to crown him with eternal glory in the heavens; so he may cause [him] to be honored on earth; and there be brought back to the memory of men the innumerable great works, which his divine goodness willed wondrously to work through him, while he dwelt in this transitory life. The same writing will also make for this, that the servants of God may more be inflamed and incited to persevere in their piety; and that sinners, while they perceive how the most benign God glorifies his servants, both in this mortal life, and in the future eternal life; and the advancement of souls, the Author writes. may awaken and rise from the mire of their offenses; and, converted to God through true penitence, may obtain salvation. Finally this labor will serve, that all the living may commend themselves to our St. John, and take him to themselves as patron and protector, by whose intercession they may be aided with God.

NOTES OF D. P.

CHAPTER I.

The earlier life of St. John up to and including his Profession.

Most illustrious Lord.

[2] I John of Seville, a Religious Professed under the habit of our glorious Father Augustine, The Author, as Vicar general, and by such profession a legitimate son of the Convent of Salamanca, and Vicar of the same, and Director of the Convent of Our Lady of Graces outside the walls of the city of Madrigal; kissing humbly the hands of Your Excellency, with all due reverence, signify to the same, that seeing the miracles and wonderful works, which the infinite God showed and worked daily, through the blessed Father John of Sahagún, and moved by singular devotion toward the same; I wished to be informed about the life and birth of the same blessed Father, as Vicar General of our Order of the holy Father Augustine; and that from the power made for me by our most Reverend Father General throughout the Spains, Father Anselm the relating of the Lord Martin, who was St. John's brother, of pious memory. When therefore I was staying in the monastery of our holy Father Augustine of the noble city of Valladolid; and there also at that time lived the Lord Martin de Castrillo, Royal Lieutenant in the city of Sahagún, and full brother of our blessed Father John of Sahagún; with many prayers I compelled him; to hand over to me full notice, of the birth, life, and conduct of his brother Father John: which I soon consigned to writing with my own hand, with a view to canonization, that, if it please the merciful God that he be referred into the Catalogue of canonized Saints, the due notice may not be lacking of those ornaments, with which he adorned the boyhood, adolescence, and the rest of the age of him living in this mortal life, passed in the world and in religion. But that I received and heard as follows.

Most illustrious Lord.

[3] he writes of what parents John was born, According to the instruction given to me by the aforesaid full brother of the Blessed John of Sahagún, it is true; that the same John was the legitimate son of the Lord John Gonsalvo de Castrillo and the Lady Sancia Martini, both of whom, honest and upright Catholic Christians and servants of God, citizens of the town of Sahagún, when not without great grief they had long lived together barren, began to ask the grace of desired offspring from the divine clemency, through the intercession of their Saints; that thus better and with greater consolation of their soul, they might be able henceforth to serve him. To the most fervent prayers poured forth to this end, they joined frequent pilgrimages to all the more celebrated churches and chapels, and there for nine days frequented their supplications; but more often to a certain reclusory outside the walls of the town of Sahagún, on the way called the French way, named St. Mary at the bridge. There it pleased God and the Virgin Mother of God to hear their vows: the Mother of God being invoked, he is conceived: for there the Lady Sancia felt that she had conceived a fetus, whom at the customary time she bore a male; and because he was their firstborn, they wished him to be called by the father's name, John.

[4] from the same mother three brothers After this God granted them also three other sons, and as many daughters: whose names are these. The first after John came to light a daughter named Maria; whom, well educated and instructed, they betrothed as wife to a certain noble Ferdinand de la Liama. This was followed by a son Ferdinand de Castrillo, who, made a Religious in the Abbey of St. Benedict of Sahagún, then Prior in the monastery of Villanova de San Mancio, then Abbot at St. Andrew de Espinareda, finally died Bishop of Granada, in the time of the Saracens. Then there was born to them a second daughter, named Joanna, married to the noble man Lupo de Peñalosa, and at present living at Alcón. and as many sisters he had; Again, a son following, the name of Louis was given at the sacred font, who lived a little time: and to this succeeded the third of the daughters, whose name had slipped from my memory, when I wished to commit these things to writing. Finally they begot the above-named Lord Martin de Castrillo, from whose mouth I myself received what I write. He had indeed his residence in the town of Sahagún, but, bound to the Court of our most clement Kings Ferdinand and Isabella, was accustomed to accompany the same.

[5] A little after it seemed good to God to call to himself the mother, and to translate her to eternal glory: by which case the father John, constrained to a second marriage, two others from a Stepmother. joined to himself another wife, from whom he begot two daughters. The first's name was Agnes, and she came into the hands of the Lord Sancius de Castellanis, a citizen of Sahagún: the second, called Catharine, married the Lord Sancius Herresuelo, likewise a citizen of Sahagún, and then Prefect of Sarria. And let these suffice concerning the birth of the blessed Father John; that it may become known, by what means he was divinely granted to his parents, that he might holily serve God in the present, and in the future enjoy celestial glory.

Most illustrious Lord.

[6] The birth of our blessed John being explained, by which he was the first of his brothers and sisters, I ought to declare to Your Lordship the course of his life in the world, up to the religious state, educated in Latin letters, taken up in our sacred Order: which, from the relation made to me by the Lord Martin de Castrillo, proceeded thus. Since he was the firstborn to his parents, he was tenderly loved by the same: and therefore was handed over as quickly as possible to the schools, to be imbued with the first rudiments of reading and writing letters. Thence promoted to the studies of Latinity, he made great progress in the humaner sciences. But already then there shone in the boy a rare devotion, with a mind inclined to prayers and fastings: and he was in every action so composed, that it easily appeared, that God had destined him for himself as a special servant. Which his father also perceiving, was accustomed to say: "Whoever shall live, will see that this man will be holy." Among other indications of a more religious mind this also was, that he loved to preach to his peer boys from a higher place, that they might never sin, but faithfully serve God; and instructed by a Curate benefice for his sustenance, for which he proposed to them indeed efficacious reasons. But as much as he advanced in age, so much grew in him the fervor of piety toward God, and the splendor of holy conduct shone forth. And so his father loved him singularly, and promoted his studies by whatever means he could. He took care therefore that the Parochial title of a certain village, called Codernilios, be conferred on the boy; an Administrator being appointed who should take care of souls; while meanwhile he himself enjoyed the revenue of the benefice for the sustenance of his son.

[7] But John, having become more grown, and not yet initiated in any sacred Orders, considered how great a matter of risk it was to have the care of souls. from scruple he resigns the same: He said therefore to his father: "Dearest father, it seems to be against conscience, that I should hold, and yet not bear, the care of souls. And so I beg through God, let us resign to another that benefice, who has more need of it, and can better than I render an account of it." To whom the father: "But to me, son," he says, "it seems more expedient that we retain it, for pursuing your studies, and for sustaining you thence; provided the Administrator be paid his wages." The son nonetheless, stronger in reasons, persisted, asking through the salvation of his soul, that he would not wish his conscience burdened. There was present at this contention the youth's uncle, John Alphonsi: who, hearing his nephew obstinate in the resignation of the benefice, and commended by his uncle to the Bishop of Burgos, moved with anger began to reproach him with levity, inconstancy, and changeableness, because he refused the revenues destined for him. To which John with great submission; "I beg," he says, "that you be not troublesome to me; I know what I do: I wish to admit nothing by which my conscience could be harmed." Then the uncle, turning to his kinsman: "Kinsman," he says, "he seems to me suitable for the Bishop of Burgos, who is pleased in such men." The counsel pleased the father, and both together set out to the aforenamed Bishop, Alphonsus de Cartagena: who, having understood the praiseworthy life of John, lovingly received him; and held him so dear, that he daily recited the canonical Hours with him.

Most illustrious Lord.

[8] renouncing also the benefices conferred on him by that Bishop, Our blessed John, established in the Court of the Bishop of Burgos, while he devoted himself wholly to divine worship, so pleased that Prelate, that he conferred on him various Prebends, considering him suitable for all things, and intending further to promote him and increase him with greater dignity. But, driven by the goads of conscience, John; and considering, how many impediments offered themselves in the Episcopal palace to one desiring to serve God, on account of the multitude of those flowing thither, and the perplexity of the causes to be treated, among which it was difficult to save the soul; and that he could not there obtain that quiet in the service of God which he longed for; asked of that most Reverend one the faculty of withdrawing to some solitude, where he might more conveniently serve God. The Bishop thought that such a petition proceeded from no other cause than that he had hitherto conferred on him less than his wishes. And so, "If for this reason," he said, "you ask leave to withdraw from me, because I have not sufficiently provided for you: I promise the first Canonry that shall fall vacant." To whom John: "Not by this," he says, "am I moved, nor do I intend that; but on the contrary I beseech your most Reverend Grace, that you would rather think to whom you may transfer, with the best conscience you can, the benefices conferred on me: for I am certain that I will not retain them."

[9] and devotes himself to giving sermons at St. Agatha's. The Bishop, recognizing that John acted seriously, and altogether aspired to a greater perfection of life, accepted the benefices resigned into his hands, and conferred them on others well deserving. But John, leave having been received, withdrew from the court, and betook himself to the parochial church of St. Agatha in the city of Burgos; content with a single, and that a very slight, chaplaincy there; according to whose obligation he daily offered the sacrifice of the Mass: and began to preach the word of God to the people, with a great concourse of the whole city. But after some stay in such exercise, having gone over to Salamanca, living most meagerly, he resolved to transfer himself to the Academy of Salamanca, and there to pursue the study of higher sciences. He was therefore received there as Chaplain of the noble, learned, and celebrated College of St. Bartholomew, near the Parochial church of St. Sebastian; in which he daily performed the Sacred rites, but through the various churches of the city frequently held a sermon. Then he took the customary Grades in that Academy: and in the cutting of a stone calculus having endured incredible tortures; and freed from them by a miracle, he becomes, from a vow, he vowed to take up as perfect a state of life as he could, in which he might spend the health divinely received in the service of God and the preaching of his word.

[10] an Augustinian in the year 1463; But all things having been weighed, he decided to ask for the habit of the Hermits of the holy and glorious Father Augustine, in the very Convent of the city of Salamanca: which his desire when he had set forth to the Reverend Father Prior, and this one had reported it to his Religious; with the supreme will and joy of all (for they had long known his merits) he was received to the habit, in the year 1463 on the 18th of June. But then he lived so, so modest, so humble, so dear to all, that, although still a Novice, they held him almost in the place of a Superior. So, the time of the novitiate being passed, received with the unanimous assent of the whole Community to Profession, he made the same on the feast of our holy Father Augustine, on the 28th of August, in the year 1464. From then he lived most holily, observing the Rule and Constitutions as accurately as possible; serving God day and night; and professed in 1464 and with fear and love fulfilling obedience until the end of his life: as may in due time be proved by lawful informations. he lives most holily. But these things narrated in few words will suffice, to excite the devotion of Your Lordship toward the Blessed Father John of Sahagún.

NOTES

p Antolinius, and others following him, say that the Saint underwent the cutting, by the counsel of two chief physicians, Doctor della Regna the elder, and Doctor Medina.

q The same recognize no miracle here, only wonder at the success of the cutting, and ascribe this to his prayers and vow.

CHAPTER II.

The religious virtues of John, and his confidence in preaching the truth.

Most illustrious Lord.

[11] John was, in his conduct, exemplary, After we have shown how the Blessed Father John of Sahagún advanced, until he bound himself by vow, to the observance of the three Evangelical counsels; it is fitting that, to excite the sincere devotion of Your Lordship, we declare how perfect he was in all his life, passed in Religion; and that as briefly as I shall be able, with the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. May it please [you] therefore to understand, more in particular, what manner of life he held in the sacred Religion, as briefly as the Holy Spirit shall give me to write; and as I have understood from trustworthy and honored persons, accustomed to confess to him both within and outside the monastery. most tender in conscience. But in the first place we have already said, that the conduct of our Blessed John was such, that to all it was an exemplar and norm of living, especially to Religious. But as much as concerns himself, his conscience was so tender, that he was occupied daily at set times in the examination of himself, especially as often as, having gone out of the monastery, he had returned there, and before he betook himself to bed. Never also would he have offered to God the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass, unless his soul were duly expiated through Confession.

[12] most obedient to Superiors, Toward his superiors we find he was always most obedient, and esteemed this virtue most highly: nor was he ever seen to have failed against it even in the least. For the confirmation of which the Lord

Martin de Castrillo, his full brother, told me; that, when at some time, having set out to his homeland, the time granted him to stay there was shorter than the affairs required for which he had come; he sent to the Superior, who should grant the faculty of prolonging his stay. But when the messenger delayed to return, and the time meanwhile had expired, immediately John (as his brother asserted under oath) shut himself into a certain chamber; speaking to no one, nor taking anything of food or drink, until the requested faculty was brought to him; as it was brought, (as appeared by remarkable proofs) after two days and nights thus spent. Moreover the same brother of his affirmed, that at some time, coming to his homeland, for the sake of visiting his kinsmen and friends; and passing through Villanova de San Mancio, where a certain brother of his stayed, excommunicated for a certain fault, and making nothing of it; John, knowing this, sharply rebuked him, and exhorted him to obey Mother Church; that one nonetheless holding to his obstinacy, John endured neither to see nor to hear him. That brother therefore prepared to give himself unbidden to meet him somewhere: but John ordered it to be announced to him, that it would be in vain; for he was not to be thought worthy of his address: whence it is manifestly known, how firm he was in the fear of God; and observant of the precepts, both proceeding from Superiors and from the Church.

[13] With Religious he dealt humbly, reverent of all, and anticipating all in honor, most humble toward Religious, by which also he made himself dear to all. If he understood anyone to be moved on his account, immediately on bent knees he asked pardon; nor would he have risen, until he had obtained it, leaving all well edified and pacified. If anyone addressed him harshly, he was not at all moved by it; but took all things in good part, and patiently endured. No one ever saw him disturbed: on the contrary we know, that when at some time he was making a journey through the wood of Madrigal, accompanied by Father Brother Peter de Monroy; and there by robbers meeting them they were not only despoiled of all things, even their Breviaries, long-suffering toward those who injured him, but moreover loaded with insults; a few days after it happened that the leader of those came to Salamanca for the sake of Confession; and, not knowing that it was John to whom he confessed, set forth all his deeds, adding that he had been driven to it by extreme poverty. John, constant to himself, heard the man; and not manifesting that he himself was the one whom he had despoiled; but after salutary admonitions, that he should not henceforth perpetrate such things, given to him, having taken a companion he went about through the city, to seek alms; with which the robber being endowed, helped bodily and spiritually, he dismissed. But examples of this kind infinite could be commemorated, to declare his long-suffering.

[14] merciful toward the afflicted, If anyone ask me, how he bore himself toward the calamitous and afflicted, widows and oppressed orphans, or those needing another's help and the sick; I answer, that by a certain natural impulse he was accustomed to be carried to helping all, both with pious admonitions, and with alms sought for that end: and with the same affection on Sundays and feast days he visited the hospitals, and the poor families known to him. Likewise he strove to bring all to peace and concord, most zealous for peace, enmities and lawsuits being quieted: whereby it came about, that, staying at Salamanca, he prevented many killings between two most noble families there, the Monroys and the Manzanos; as several honored citizens of that city related to me. Nay even, when by civil discords the whole city was torn into parties, the nobility ready for arms and killings, to restrain which the Royal majesty had been in vain; referring all things to God; John being sent there, like an Angel of peace, restrained all, and stopped the formidable division. His profound humility is hence known, that when anyone wished to give him thanks, for a benefit divinely obtained through him; he admonished him, to render thanks to God: for that he was a wretched sinner, who could do nothing beyond what He bestowed on him.

[15] In administering the sacrament of Penance, how discreet he was, discreet toward penitents; and of how tender a conscience; testify all who heard those who were accustomed to confess to him; and these were innumerable, of whom even today several live. Never would he, except restitution being made, have absolved those obligated to make it, from the unjust detention of another's property, when it was possible for them; but if it were not, he interposed himself as a mediator with the injured, and besought them to remit the debts by way of alms. Likewise he denied absolution to women, who without just cause or necessity used white lead or rouge; nor did he dissemble with Ecclesiastics, until he had persuaded them to cut off their hair, and to use a habit befitting their state. The same was he toward matrons, by no means permitting them to make larger alms, but by no means indulgent; without the express consent of their husbands: nor would he have relaxed their sins for the Nobles, unless the pimps and evildoers whom they had in their house were driven from it. But all these things I have from the testimony of several honored men, and namely from the mouth of a certain Roderick Guaras, living at the time of the most famous strife growing between the Manzanos and Monroys, who dwelt at Salamanca near St. John of Alcázar.

[16] To his sermons there was a very great concourse of people, most gracious at preaching accustomed to be drawn by so powerful an allurement, that they said everywhere, "We are going to hear the gracious preacher." Meanwhile he was so undaunted in this office, that he never spared the truth, to be spoken however in its place and time; so that by no threats, not even by death itself proposed, yet most free would he allow silence to be imposed on himself. Of this matter several witnesses could be adduced, accustomed to hear his salutary admonitions, still surviving today. But namely in truth I declare, that it was affirmed to me by most grave men of the Equestrian order, who had heard the Blessed John preaching at Alba de Tormes, in rebuking vices: four leagues from Salamanca, before the Lord Garcia de Toledo Duke of Alba, that he with such great fervor chastised the sloth of the nobles in governing their household, and the unjust detainers of others' goods, and their helpers and the abettors of evildoers; then also the oppressors of their subjects, robbers, and leaders of factions; that no one doubted but that almighty God spoke through his mouth, for the correction of the chief Nobility present there.

[17] But when that freedom of speaking had so grievously moved the Duke of Alba, that, lifted up with anger, he immediately called him to himself; and in a certain large hall, under which the river Tormes ran, [him] brought before much Nobility, struck him with sharp and contumelious words, Hence the Duke of Alba being offended, as a man of foolish loquacity. But when those Knights who were present saw the Duke so seething, nay foaming at the lips; and feared lest he should order the man to be cast headlong from the window into the river; they heard him saying among other things: "Since, Father, you know how to put no bridle on your tongue, do not wonder if someone cast it on you as you return." Then the Saint, who hitherto had kept silence; "To what end, Lord," he said, "do I mount the pulpit? that I may announce the truth to the hearers, or rather that I may basely flatter them by adulation? he gravely upbraids him; It is fitting for your Lordship to know, that a preacher ought to be so disposed in mind, to speak the truth, both in declaring and chastising faults, and in praising virtue, that he should wish even to meet death for that cause": to which when he had added more to the same effect, he extricated himself from the Duke, as best he could, and gave himself to the way toward Salamanca, accompanied by a single companion Father Peter de Monroy.

[18] and sends two horsemen, They had now completed about half the journey, and had come to an open and deserted place; when they espy two horsemen running toward them, threatening with lances and swords: wherefore John said to his companion, "Do you see those two horsemen hastening? They think nothing good, but come to test our patience. Nevertheless, if God is for us, who can harm? To which the companion: "Indeed I do not know their intention; but before they become too near to us, I will try with God's help what they want"; and bending himself, he began to collect stones in his sleeve. But John seeing this; "Not yet, to cudgel him with his companion: O Father," he said, "are you perfectly religious, who wish to repay evil with evil: do you not know that we are admonished by the Lord, that tribulations and temptations are to be endured in this life? Unless you immediately unburden yourself, I will not advance even one foot further. Do not fear: God will fight for us." This said, he fixed his foot, nor moved himself, until that one had cast away the stones. Then as they pursued their journey, the horsemen overtaking them were no further off than a stone's throw; when their horses stood still immovable; and however much they were urged with spurs, they could not advance a step; but trembling began to foam and sweat: which they seeing, were themselves also terrified, and thought it better to acknowledge their fault, and suppliantly to ask help with pardon.

[19] these being divinely impeded, Then John asked, what they wanted: and they confessed, that they had been sent by the Duke, to seize and beat them with cudgels to death; but now their horses had stood immovable, which, that he would free from the invisible bond, and themselves from the fault, they humbly prayed. To whom John most lovingly answering, "Merciful," he said, "is God, friends, who preserved you from so great a sin, and freed us from your hands: may the same remit to you the crime designed; and, absolved from your sins, make you return home safe and sound. Beware lest you henceforth admit such things, and fear God, and go in peace, announcing to the Duke what happened to you on the way." Then they, the horses being at once mounted, returned as quickly as possible to Alba; and before they betook themselves to their homes, approached the Duke; whom they found wondrously afflicted and confounded, and as it were dying, no cause of so grave and sudden an evil appearing. the Duke himself is tormented to death; When therefore the horsemen, having entered, narrated the deeds, the Duke recognized whence and what he suffered. He ordered therefore some of his men to hasten at once back to Salamanca; and approaching the monastery, to which otherwise he was most well disposed, to beseech for the love of God, that, if the Fathers wished his life to be saved, placed at the extreme point, they should send back to him at once our blessed John, by whom alone he knew he could be helped.

[20] The Vicar of the monastery at that time was the Reverend Father John of Salamanca, and by [the Saint recalled to himself] who, the Blessed John being taken, without delay having set out for Alba, presented himself to the Duke. He indeed running to meet them, threw himself at John's knees, asked pardon, requested help: and accusing himself of the crime committed, admonished [him] confidently to return, to hold sermons there and correct his vices, and show the way of salvation. But John, with grave words, but seasoned with reverence toward the Duke, rebuked his life and morals; and from the salutarily compunct Duke, and from the Duchess his wife, he asks pardon: he asked and obtained pardon for returning; bringing back, besides other alms made for him by them, certain priestly vestments, and among them veils for chalices and corporals very precious, which after the death of the Blessed John I long had with me. Nor was it by the Duke of Alba alone that he was thus endangered for the cause of truth: but by several persons both noble and plebeian, so that we do not at all doubt, nay are certain, finally the Saint himself dies by poison. that death was brought upon him by poison by a certain shameless woman. Which I so confidently affirm; because I have trustworthy witnesses, who heard that very woman, whose lasciviousness and shamelessness he had chastised, swearing, that she would put it into effect within a year: as in fact happened. For immediately he began to wither away, with such manifest indications of poison administered to him, that all thence affirmed him to be dying.

NOTES. D. P.

CHAPTER III.

The fervor of John sacrificing, and certain miracles while he was still living.

Most illustrious Lord.

[21] The birth of our Blessed John of Sahagún being set forth; and also the manner of his conduct, In the daily Mass very long, both in boyhood and adolescence, when he was still a Canon or Chaplain, and after he embraced the state of perfection in our most holy Order; the manner also of hearing Confessions, and of preaching the word of God; let us pass to the same, celebrating Masses; and let us see how he bore himself in them. May Your Clarity therefore know, that he was accustomed to sacrifice daily; nor ever omitted it, unless insuperably hindered. But he was in this most holy oblation so long, that he could find no one at last who was willing to assist him. And when he was therefore compelled to have recourse to the Superior, and to ask him, that by interposing his command he would compel even the unwilling to comply with him; and ordered to correct himself in it, he on the contrary began to accuse him himself, and finally expressly to command, that henceforth he should accommodate himself to the manner of the other Priests. This was deservedly most grievous to John; yet knowing the value of obedience, and that it is better than the Sacrifice, even such; for some days he humbly tried to fulfill the command: until with the lowliest prayers and bent knees he besought the Superior, to absolve him from such a command.

[22] Moved therefore by these things the Prior, and, on account of that sanctity of life by which he knew John excelled, not vainly conjecturing that he was impelled to it by great reasons, said to him: "For what cause does your Reverence so importunely urge this? Do you not see, with how great trouble you afflict the ministers? Why have you not conformed to the usage of the other Priests?" To whom John said that he was held by certain grave impediments, by which he was prevented from finishing Masses so quickly as the others did; nor could he do it without his great detriment. "Therefore," said the Prior, "tell the cause, which compels you to be so slow in that divine work, if you wish me to absolve you from that command." But he excused himself, saying that those causes were altogether secret, which he could disclose to no one. But the Prior pressed all the more, and finally compelled [him] by adding the precept of obedience. Since therefore John was accustomed to use the Prior himself as Confessor, he resolved to enclose all things under the seal of the Sacrament: which done, the Prior commanded his subjects, to comply with John in saying Mass, and by no means to disturb him; and he who before had held him for a Saint, then esteemed him even more.

[23] Meanwhile he was compelled to keep silent the matter, made known by an indication so unfit for him for any use, which yet he judged ought by all means not to be pressed by silence, but to be brought forth to the notice of many, lest the wonders of God be frustrated of their fruit, and that the wavering in faith might be corroborated, and that the servants of God might be animated to love him, and constantly serve him, but sinners be excited to penitence. then to the Prior again insisting he indicates it even otherwise; Led therefore by pious zeal the Prior, began to exhort John and as it were to compel him, to reveal the same to him outside Confession in such a way that knowledge itself could use it, in those circumstances of places, times, and persons in which he certainly knew spiritual good would come thence: for it was not fitting that a lamp be contained under a bushel. Overcome by these reasons our Blessed John, with profound humility, set forth to the Prior all his secrets, which he had revealed to him in Confession; giving him license to use that knowledge, as often as he should judge it expedient for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

[24] This license being received, the Prior, most attached and most familiar to me, this one indeed narrates to the writer, judged it fitting to communicate such secrets with me in these words: "Father John, since I certainly know, with how great solace it will be to you to know those things which concern our Father John of Sahagún; believe without doubt, that he, compelled by the precept of obedience in conscience, to reveal to me the cause of his slowness during the celebration, declared, that the divine benignity showed itself to him in this Sacrament, and gave to be known mysteries, such as a mortal man cannot naturally comprehend with his understanding. For Christ himself exhibited himself to him in that most divine mystery, visible to bodily eyes and to be addressed: accustomed to see Christ in the Host, and that he beheld the blessed wounds of his hands and feet and also of his most holy side, darting most shining rays toward himself, with a coruscation so gracious and effectual, that it alone would suffice to sustain a man without food or drink. He beheld the most holy body of Christ, like a most shining sun, and in it his full and infinite glory; so that he felt it most true, what the Apostle testifies, that he is the one on whom the Angels desire to gaze: and many ineffable mysteries, and because, wholly absorbed in such contemplation, he had the most illumined eyes of the understanding; he beheld also the thrice-holy Trinity; namely God himself, one in essence, and three in persons: so that the ineffable mystery of the most holy Triad was laid open to him; how the Father produced the Son, and both breathed forth the Holy Spirit. 1 Peter 1

[25] and to perceive several other graces, He signified moreover to me, how in the Sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord he beheld innumerable mysteries, and there was instructed concerning all the things which he was afterward to preach. There he espied the choirs of Angels, the most holy Mother of God, and other Saints, and celestial secrets, so many and so great, that the tongue of no man is fit to express them in words: so that the aforesaid Father Prior, Father Martin de Spinosa, in the year 1379 said to me these formal words: 'Father John, I declare to your Reverence, that he confessed to me, that he attained so many mysteries during the sacrifice, that for a certain sacred horror, as if rapt out of myself, I seemed to myself about to fall dead to the ground.' All which when I, a most unworthy sinner, had learned, weighing the infinite and greatest benefits, which mortals obtain by celebrating or hearing Masses; firmly and devoutly I proposed, never, unless some infirmity prevented, to omit saying or at least hearing the Sacred Mass: which I am also the author advising that all do, as many as are about to read or learn these things, to the greater glory of God, and the solace and advancement of souls."

PARERGON

Concerning similar favors, exhibited to another servant of God during Mass, at the beginning of this 17th century.

John Sebastian del Campo, S.J. The things hitherto related, in the following longer Life no. 23; about to confirm by the most trustworthy testimony of St. Thomas of Villanova, I wish to illustrate such unusual favors of God toward St. John, by a more recent example of this century, which our Matthias Tanner relates in his posthumous work, on the illustrious deeds and virtues of those who, of the Society of Jesus, in procuring the salvation of souls, sweated with special zeal in Europe. He treats, among many others, of Father John Sebastian del Campo the Sardinian, who died at Sassari in the year 1608, on the 6th of August, in the year 1608 died at Sassari in Sardinia, conspicuous for great benefits wrought to every kind of men, of whom Elias of St. Teresa in the Legation of the Church Triumphant, vol. 1 book 2 chapter 31 thus writes: "He died with a most certain reputation of holiness; and now God works so many miracles through him, that they must be described in a special book." This the author of the Life did, hitherto unknown to me, nor do I know whether published in type, but alleged by Tanner, and reduced into a Spanish compendium by John Eusebius Nieremberg, among the Lives of the illustrious Men of our Society; namely from the juridical Process, by which those things were examined and proved, by the authority of the Archbishop of Sassari Andreas Bacallar. But what makes for the present I find thus written on p. 378.

"The zeal of prayer was always in his chief care throughout the whole course of his life, to which, or to spiritual reading, he assigned all the hours of day and night, free from Apostolic labors and the briefest sleep; during Mass accustomed to [see the Lord in the Host] wondrously heaped with celestial illuminations and favors in it … and his familiarity in dealing with God advanced so far, that very often the Lord offered himself to his eyes to be seen, and deigned to grant him most sweet colloquy: especially in Mass, in which during the Consecration he exhibited himself visible in diverse forms. Once, when he was saying Mass, a person devout to God assisting close to the altar, saw him, holding with his fingers the sacred Host, now to be consumed, kindled in his whole face and as it were rapt out of himself; to sob, to be flooded with tears, to handle [him present, in a visible appearance] and to tremble with his whole breast, for the space of nearly a quarter of an hour: and at last heard him saying: 'Lord, I cannot receive you, unless you return to the former appearance of the Eucharist': after which with great quiet he consumed the Host, and for another quarter of an hour remained wholly motionless. The Sacred Mass finished, the same person, the Father being called to the confessional, narrated what she had seen and heard: at which he, suffused with shame, and seeing himself betrayed by his own words, God so permitting, added; that God had appeared to him as an infant in a living form instead of the Eucharist in his hands, and had said, 'Why do you not receive me?' and therefore that he had answered, 'Lord, I would not dare to receive you, unless you return to the former form.'

Another time present to the same one sacrificing, she saw him after the Eucharist was consumed lifted from the ground, and from his mouth a ray of such great splendor shining forth, that, unable to bear its light, she was compelled to cover her eyes: and this in various ways, which when she afterward reported to the Father, he answered, that this ray did not proceed from his mouth, but from the divinity of Christ present, who is the splendor of the paternal glory. Again indeed, when he said the Sacred Mass publicly in a copious multitude of men; having said before the Communion itself, 'Lord, I am not worthy,' he remained for some time suspended: and then, with the great admiration of all, suddenly with a loud voice exclaimed, 'Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!'; and added a little after; 'Lord, I beseech, return to the former form; because I am not worthy, nor can I thus consume you.' And apparitions of this kind were very frequent, in which now in the form of one suffering, the Lord cut with wounds, exhibited himself to him in the sacred Host; now glorious; as was easily gathered from the words and affections meanwhile noted in him: and so great a force of light at some time burst from his mouth, while turned to the people he prayed, 'The Lord be with you,' that the chasuble, of green color, with which he was clothed, seemed plainly to have put on a white one.

and to suffer ecstasies often long-lasting. But at other times rapt into ecstasy during the Sacrifice, he remained in the same for several hours, so that he could in no way be recalled to his senses; and the penitents, awaiting him at the seat of the Confessional, had to return home empty. Indeed from the Father's death by a juridical Process, there were various sworn witnesses, of whom some, present ten and more times to the Father sacrificing, noted such prodigious events. But those of the Society who served the one celebrating at the altar, observed as it were ordinarily, that, when for the rest of the time of the Mass he scarcely sustained his aged limbs, yet from the Consecration of the most holy Sacrament until the Communion, he scarcely stood on tiptoe, and not rarely was lifted with his whole body from the ground."

CHAPTER IV.

The miracles of St. John living and dead.

Most illustrious Lord.

[26] Among the miracles of him living it is established The manner being explained, which the Blessed John of Sahagún used in the daily saying of Mass; it is fitting, that we briefly narrate some miracles, which through his intercession God deigned to work, for the manifesting of his eminent holiness, both in life and after death. To make their faith more certain, it will please Your Clarity to understand, that I was informed of them by the full brother of that Blessed one, the often-named Martin; who under oath and his own autograph asserted to me, that at the time of the pestilence raging in the town of Sahagún, there had died of the same a certain seven-year-old little daughter of his: for whom, still lying on the death-bed, when he himself and his wife were preparing all things for the burial, Father John came up with his companion Father Peter de Monroy: and proceeding straight to the chamber in which the corpse lay, and addressing no word to her mother or sisters, seized the hand of the dead girl, and with her descended to the place where they were lamenting. that he raised his niece from death; And he himself leading the girl by the hand, and with her as if sound conversing, said to those mourning; 'Why are you so greatly disturbed? Because the little one once suffers a swoon, you imagine to yourselves that she immediately died.' Then he said certain other things to them, and restored the little one sound to her mother. They were vehemently astounded, as those who neither had spoken before to the Blessed John, nor had at all seen him entering; but they certainly knew her to have died. They gave thanks therefore to God for so singular a benefit: because they did not at all doubt, but that at the entrance of the Blessed John the dead girl had received life. And she still lives even now, by name Isabella de Castrillo, married to the noble Don Peter Vaca; and stays in her paternal house, mother of one son and two daughters.

[27] and a little after, a brawl having arisen in the same house, The next day the Blessed John was to return to Salamanca; but meanwhile, while all run to see the girl raised, and without any harm being well, before him and her father Martin, they wonder; it happened that one of their nephews, whose name was Sancius de Herrezuelo, came to John, and asked him to deign to come also to his house, to visit his sick wife. To the same place also arrived a certain Martin Garcias de Guaza, and also his son John Garcias de Guaza, between whom and the aforesaid Sancius there was a great dissension, on account of certain words mutually had at the village of Vilelgua, where they had stayed together. These, thus by chance coming together, when they revived the past quarrel, their tempers so flared up, he healed a friend mortally wounded by his brother, that John Garcias de Guaza, drawing his sword, grievously wounded Sancius de Herrezuelo; and one of his shoulders being cut, almost severed the arm at the same time. At the crash the Lord Martin de Castrillo ran up, and wishing to succor the wounded Sancius, struck so strong a blow on the head of John Garcias, that he could scarcely with both hands draw the sword out from the wound, and in that effort threw the same John Garcias down under his feet. But so great was the tumult there, that the people ran up from every side and in throngs, to separate them from one another. Among the rest there was present also John of Sahagún, introducing a surgeon, who had been summoned to treat the wounded. He, inspecting the wound of John Garcias, judged it altogether mortal and incurable; wherefore, to the man destitute of his senses and breathing his last, he was content to bind the head about with a linen, saying: 'Nothing is to be done for this one: behold he dies: think only of his burial.'

[28] The people therefore having departed, or being occupied about Sancius, our Blessed John, left alone with the dying man, when he had cut the hairs around the wound, he himself treating the wound, and anointed it with oil, again firmly bound the head with a linen, and so left him; the wounded man never having spoken, until the next day, when the Blessed John returned to him, and began anew to treat the wound. Then Garcias said; 'O holy Mary! where have I been?' nor added a word more. The Blessed John persevered to treat the wound daily, as he had begun; and within eight days perfectly healed Garcias, who even now lives unharmed. The surgeon, who was a Jew, and judged the cure to have been altogether beyond nature, and to be uniquely ascribed to the merits of the servant of God John and to the divine power; resolved within himself to embrace the Catholic Roman Religion. But the Lord Martin, both miracles, as much in the raising of his little daughter, as in the cure of John Garcias, performed, as he saw with his own eyes, so confirmed under oath. Many other miracles also almighty God worked, at the intercession of the Blessed John, while still leading this mortal life; the same brother being witness of both miracles. which I omit to narrate to Your Clarity, lest I be too long in this succinct information. But I have firmly resolved to set forth all things more fully, in another ampler relation of the wonders of the same Blessed John of Sahagún.

Most illustrious Lord.

[29] The wonders being related which John living performed, I come to narrating to Your Clarity, what the merciful God willed to be done at his sepulcher. That therefore it may become known to all, how holily John lived in this world, and how much God loved him, and what the same can now do with the same [God]; then that we may deserve to be aided by his help, and to obtain divinely the things desired; John, sixteen years having been spent in Religion, finally that we may more effectually excite the faithful to the praise and service of God, and promote the devotion of Catholic Christians, and also of all those who through the grace of the Holy Spirit intend to obey holy Mother Church, by receiving the sacrament of baptism through faith, and so establishing for themselves a seat in the kingdom of heaven; here I declare, that our Blessed John of Sahagún entered the Order of the Hermits of our holy Father Augustine on the 27th of June, in the year 1463; and in it was professed on the 28th of August 1464, on the feast of the same most holy Father, he dies on the 11th of June 1479, when the Prior of the Convent of Salamanca was Father John of Salamanca, and the Master of Novices Father John of Arenas: who both received his Profession. But he lived in our Religion to sixteen or seventeen years; when, the Lord calling him, to receive the reward of his good works in celestial glory, he departed from life on the 11th of June, on the feast of St. Barnabas, in the year 1479. But it pleased God immediately to honor and make known his precious death by great wonders, done in regard of him.

[30] There soon followed the long-desired rain, For when at Salamanca and around it for a long time it had not rained, and therefore many pilgrimages and supplications had been publicly instituted; at the very moment in which the Blessed died, so copious a rain descended, that all the citizens cried out together; 'The Blessed John of Sahagún has obtained for us this rain from heaven.' But our Religious, firmly persuaded too that he had been a holy man, buried him before the major choir of their church: and immediately the inhabitants and neighbors began to run thither in their necessities, and the earth of the sepulcher cures diseases. bringing or leading their sick. Hence so much grew the popular devotion, that they began, in adorning that sepulcher, to bring linens, in which they carried off some of the earth taken from there, for the remedy of fevers and other diseases. Although they persevered in doing this for nine or ten years, and almighty God did not cease through the merits of his servant John to cure very many of their infirmities, especially those with hernias and fevers; yet we did not make much of it. Nay, when one of our Religious, John de Alcaraz by name, accustomed to accompany him as he went out from the house, and, being piously affected toward him after his death, had begun to consign such events to writing, and to lend his effort to attaching the aforesaid lines to the tomb; we charged him with rashness.

[31] But since God did not wish the excellence of such great virtues to be hidden any longer, but had decreed to render it known and conspicuous to all; In the year 1488 the miracles begin to be recorded, it was brought about by His providence that, while I was holding the Priorate of the Convent of Salamanca, on a certain Saturday, on the Vigil of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, in the year 1488, while our Religious were singing Compline in the choir; at the beginning of the first Psalm, "When I called upon," there ran to me with weeping eyes one of our Brothers, Hernando of Salamanca, then Doorkeeper of the convent, and deceased therein between the years 1503 and 1504, and said: "Father, your Reverence is begged to come down at once; for the church is full of people, awaiting your address." I therefore came down, accompanied by some Religious: and having seen a crowd packed there, I found in the midst of all a girl named Beatrice, about twenty-three years old, daughter of Juan de Curva and Violante de Sese, citizens of Cuéllar; who had come from Alburquerque, having a hand loose and useless, when on the 27th of June the girl's hand was cured, in order that at the tomb of the blessed man she might obtain healing: and scarcely had she put her hand in there, when at once she felt herself cured. It happened, moreover, for the confirmation of so great a matter, that there were likewise found there three Apostolic Notaries, Gaspar Lopez de Gricio, afterward Secretary of our most clement King; Andrés Toro, Priest and Chaplain of the church of St. Pelagia; and Juan Diaz de Santillana: whom I required to be willing to be witnesses of the miracle wrought in the aforesaid girl: who at once arranged everything for drawing up a legitimate instrument thereupon.

[32] Adjured therefore to tell the truth, she deposed accordingly, that the cause of her coming to the tomb of Blessed John of St. Facundus was this; that, being in the castle of Alburquerque, with Ruiteria de la Cueva, she having been wretchedly contracted: on the 29th of October previous, daughter of Sancho Perez de la Cueva, governor of that place, on the 19th of October 1487; in her left hand she had felt a most grievous torment, with a contraction of the nerves, which had closed the hand into a fist and left it useless for everything; so that she could in no way open it, and the overgrowing nails penetrated the palm; whence that same hand within eight days appeared so black and deformed that from it, now putrefying, a grievous stench arose: but the surgeons, however much labor was applied, could provide her no remedy; and at last, the matter being despaired of, had said that no mortal, but God alone, could help her. She also deposed that in that castle many persons had been made ill, and among them the daughter of the Governor himself: about whose health the physicians, having been consulted, since they held her hopeless, after many had been healed at Alburquerque, the father ordered one of his servants to hasten to Salamanca, and from there to bring some of the sepulchral earth. Which servant I myself saw; and as he asked me to order some of the said earth to be given him, I sent him back, his wish fulfilled. And when he had quickly returned to Alburquerque, the earth was placed upon all the sick, and upon the Governor's daughter herself; and all soon received health.

[33] she having vowed to come to the tomb herself, Seeing this, the same deposing woman vowed devoutly to approach in person to the tomb of Blessed John of St. Facundus: and setting herself on the road, she came to Salamanca on the 28th of June, on the Vigil of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, as was said above: and soon, having entered our church, she let down her hand and whole arm into the tomb; and reciting in honor of our Lord the Savior three times the Our Father and Hail Mary, while praying she felt a great heat creeping through her hand and arm: which, drawn back to herself, she opened the hand, and found it altogether sound and clean and sweetly fragrant. Which hand both I and all those standing around saw, keeping in the palm the marks of the nails, formerly more deeply fixed in it. The witnesses of this infirmity and healing were, the Bachelor Alfonso de Algava, who had attempted to help the aforesaid girl by his surgical art; likewise the girl's own brother Juan Manuel, and had placed her contracted hand within, Guiomar de la Torre, and Inés de Olivares, who had come with her to the tomb. And when a solemn Act had been drawn up before the three aforenamed Notaries, all the bells being rung, the Te Deum laudamus was sung, in thanksgiving for so singular a benefit, bestowed by almighty God through the merits of Blessed John of St. Facundus.

[34] On the next day, namely the 29th of June, 1488, before the undersigned Notaries, Gaspar Lopez de Gricio, on the 29th of June a fractured leg is there restored, Juan Diaz de Santillana, and Don Antonio de Roxas, Chaplain of the King and Proctor of the most illustrious Lord Bishop of Salamanca, now Archbishop of Granada, gathered together with me in the major choir of our church, we saw carried in the wife of Gonzalo Molitor (the Miller), placed upon a bier; whence the bearers had set her down, with a fractured leg, and with such great pains that she could in no way move herself. She was questioned by us, and confessed that, before she was brought here, she had received the sacraments of Confession and Communion. Then, while we were present, having been let down into the tomb of Blessed John, she was drawn out from there entirely sound: and we saw her, as did the countless crowd that was present, walking and going about uprightly, without any limping whatever. Which thing, before the aforesaid Proctor or Administrator Don Antonio de Roxas, I ordered to be entered into the acts by the aforesaid Notaries, and confirmed in writing.

NOTES OF D. P.

CHAPTER V.

The remaining part of the ancient miracles.

Most Illustrious Lord.

[35] On the 15th of July speech and hearing are restored: Among several other wonderful things which happened at the tomb of our Blessed John of St. Facundus, is this, that on the 15th of July 1488 there came thither a certain Bernam Soger, twenty-five years old, deaf and mute; and causing himself to be let down into the tomb, he received perfect hearing and speech. The witnesses were Pedro de Canecia, Juan de Flores, and Miguel de Madrigal: and it was put into writing by Juan Diaz de Santillana, and Gil Fernández de Tapia, both Notaries and citizens of Salamanca: who consigned everything with their own hand.

[36] We likewise saw, most Illustrious Lord, a girl coming named Sancha, servant of Juan de Salamanca, born at Zamora, a girl lame from birth is raised up on the 8th of July, about twenty-two years old; who, questioned by us, deposed that, being lame and ill-formed from birth, so that with her loins dislocated she could not raise herself up, but was compelled to creep along the ground, with unspeakable torment; on Monday the 8th of July 1488, placed upon the tomb of our Blessed John, appeared before us perfectly healed; the witnesses being Antonio de Paredes, Alfonso de Dueñas, Bernardino de Paredes Canon, and Catalina de Carvajal dwelling at Zamora.

[37] On the 6th of August a man paralytic for five years, In like manner, most Illustrious Lord, on Wednesday the 6th of August, of the same year 1488, we beheld coming Juan de Mondragón; who, examined, swore that for whole five years, maimed in arms, hands, legs, and feet, he could nowhere advance, except very little, and that with the greatest torments: who likewise within the tomb of our Blessed John recovered the full health of all his members. Those who saw him before powerless, and afterward able without any defect, were Francisco de Vitoria and Pedro de Mondragón. To the faith of which miracle the Notary Don Diaz Santillana set his hand.

[38] and a girl of 30 years, Again, most Illustrious Lord, on that same day, Inés, daughter of Rodrigo Alfonso a citizen of Garrovillas, about thirty years old, lame from birth and paralytic, so that she could hardly move her hands or feet, or any other of her members; obtained complete health within the tomb of our Blessed John, before Alfonso de Villegas, Francisco de Vergara, Gonzalo and Antonio both sons of Diego Alfonso, a citizen and merchant of Salamanca. And when she had affirmed under oath that all things were so; the matter was described by Juan Diaz de Santillana, the oft-mentioned Notary: who, just as he himself had also seen it, so left it signed by his own hand.

[39] Moreover, most Illustrious Lord, on Wednesday the 13th of August 1488, and another on the 13th of August, brought to the same tomb was Helena, daughter of Miguel Vaquero, an inhabitant of Fuentelapeña, lately deceased; she attested that she obtained full health of her whole body, which before she could not move except by creeping with hands and feet, because she had been born so weak, and had always had her very hands closed. Which thing, together with the girl herself, was attested by Alfonso Vaquero, Rodrigo Gaytero, and Juan Longo: and it was entered into the Acts before me by the same Notary Juan Diaz de Santillana, in the year, month, and day aforementioned.

[40] On the 25th of July a boy crushed by a bull is restored to life, In the same manner, on Friday the 25th of July 1488, we beheld coming, in the company of many men, Tomás, a tenant of Palencia de Negrilla, bearing to the tomb of our Blessed John his little son, Andrés Sico, as if dead and without any sign of life: concerning whom the father, adjured to tell the pure and plain truth, deposed how on the preceding Monday a certain Alfonso, son of Cristóbal Santos, driving a cart laden with grain, had run over the boy, trampled by the bulls, and had left him utterly crushed by the wheels; and seeing what had happened, he had fled to the church. This understood, Tomás had said to Alfonso's father that there was no reason for his son to seek asylum; for he forgave him the imprudence committed: and soon he commended the little one to St. Mary and Blessed John of St. Facundus; and at once the boy, breathing again, opened his eyes, yet could not speak. Then he and his wife brought the little one to the tomb of the Blessed: where, most perfectly restored to himself, he was seen by me and countless others walking through the cloister, speaking freely, and eating. The witnesses both of the death and of the aforesaid resurrection were the aforesaid Cristóbal Santos, Alfonso his son, and the boy's father Tomás; moreover the whole matter was confirmed by the autograph of the aforecited Notary, Juan Diaz de Santillana.

[41] and another, a paralytic, It also happened, most Illustrious Lord, with me standing near, that Juan Fernández, son of Pedro Fernández dwelling at Almeida, was seen fully healed: who had been born so weak that he was compelled to drag his feet behind him, and could in no way raise one of his arms. That this was so true was attested by Catalina Ruiz, mother of the aforesaid Juan Fernández, and a certain inhabitant of the village of Almeida, likewise named Juan Fernández: and this signal and altogether divine miracle was confirmed by the subscription of his own hand by the oft-mentioned Juan Diaz de Santillana, Notary.

[42] It also pleased almighty God, most Illustrious Lord, on the 22nd of July a leg withered for 20 years, through the intervention of Blessed John, to grant complete health, on the 22nd of the same month, to a certain Francisco Bollono, from Bustillo, a hamlet of the town of Toro: who, weak for twenty years in the left hip, also carried a whole withered leg. He, when he had received in our church the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, returned home sound, and had as witnesses of his health Don Pedro Sánchez Priest, and Pedro Rodríguez tenants of Bustillo, with countless persons who were present. And the public faith of all this was given to the Notaries by the oft-named Juan Diaz de Santillana.

[43] The Author an eyewitness, These and several other similar miracles, most Illustrious Lord, the divine clemency worked, on account of the merits of Blessed John of St. Facundus; besides countless others, which for lack of Notarial faith have not been certified; yet I myself saw them with my own eyes, and if required will be able to affirm them by oath. And many of them were exceedingly astonishing in the sight of men. Certainly I saw a man, about forty years old, who, having one of his eyes utterly extinct, a one-eyed man enlightened, when he had poured out his prayers to the Saint, and had smeared on his eye a little earth, taken from his tomb, soaked with holy water; could not bear the pain arising thence to him. So, having drawn a kerchief from his bag, he placed it on the eye thus moistened: to which, when that mud had adhered, he drew off along with it whatever flesh and hairs had grown over the eye, as if they had been glued to the cloth; and he marveled to see all things clearly with both eyes. Which, when I saw, I took a knife and cut off that part of the kerchief to which the diseased flesh with the hairs had adhered; and in memory of the deed I placed it with the other Relics of our Blessed John.

[44] I also saw, placed on a bier, brought to the tomb of the Blessed, a man about fifty years old; who for whole thirty years had been so weak in his hands, feet, and whole body, that he could not even move his head: so that we judged it necessary to open the whole tomb for him, and to let the man, placed on a plank, down into it by two ropes, altogether like a corpse, a paralytic of 30 years healed, inasmuch as he was all withered and yellow, only skin clothed over his bones. Then I said: "I wish to go away from here; for I do not deserve to behold so great a miracle"; and I withdrew outside the church. Scarcely had I entered the cloister, when I heard an enormous noise and outcry: when, running, those who had heard me speaking the aforesaid words reached me, and begged me to return into the church: for that wretched man was standing sound without any appearance of disease. Returning therefore, I found all the people fallen on their knees, with joined hands and weeping eyes; and seeing the man walking through the church, and with hands raised to heaven giving thanks to God; utterly stunned in mind, I knew not what else to do, than that I too should bend my knees, and with the rest give thanks to God. And this wonderful event not I alone, but countless men, saw with me, who in memory of the deed signed these things in writing.

[45] sight given to one born blind, I also saw brought to the same tomb, and granted full faculty of seeing, a twelve-year-old boy, who had been born blind. Likewise, before Don Gonzalo de Mercado, uncle of the Duke of Alburquerque, and much other Nobility, and to a one-eyed girl. I saw come to the same tomb, about the tenth hour of the evening, a girl about twenty years old, blind in one eye; and return seeing well with both: concerning which matter, when we had rigorously examined the girl, we found it to be as she said.

NOTES. D. P.

EPILOGUE.

[46] All which things, most Illustrious Lord, although by their prolixity likely to bring annoyance, The Author protests that these were written by him I wished to insert into this brief account; that to your Brightness might be made known the parents, the birth, the holy life, and the wonders of our Blessed John of St. Facundus, and what things God daily deigns to do through him, to demonstrate his extraordinary holiness, that his servants may be more kindled to his love, that readers may be edified and that the Catholic faith may be confirmed in the hearts of lukewarm and languid Christians; but above all, that above all things God may be praised, and served by all his creatures: also for some praise of our holy Religion of the Hermits of the great Father Augustine, from which such and many other holy men have proceeded. Finally, that with the wonderful works of these men made known, your Brightness may be willing to constitute yourself an effective mediator, and may commit themselves to the protection of the Blessed: to this end, that our Blessed John may, throughout the whole Christendom of the Church militant, be venerated as a Saint; and that it may have him as its intercessor for itself, together with the rest who will honor him and invoke him as Patron. So that, supported by such patronage in heaven, your Brightness may be prospered in every act, to the greater glory of the eternal majesty, the salvation of your soul, the defense of holy Mother Church, the honor of the Spains, and of the never-sufficiently-praised city of Córdoba, in which your Brightness was born.

[46] but Albanus may more effectively advance the business of Canonization Moreover, I have narrated all these things to the praise, honor, glory, and triumph of the most powerful and most clement King Ferdinand the Catholic, by whom your Brightness is sent to Rome to the Apostolic See, to solicit there and obtain the Beatification of our Father John of St. Facundus: which matter can bring to your Excellency nothing other than the renown of an eternal name, since you will have been set thus as an example to all the Nobility for the pursuit of such pious works; that those following your footsteps may deserve to be made partakers of the crown, may more effectively advance it, which the merciful God has prepared for your Brightness in eternal glory with himself, together with the endless goods which neither ear has heard nor eye has seen. The beginning of all which may the merciful God, through his infinite grace, deign to bestow upon your Excellency, even in the present life, mortal indeed, but long, sound, and holy; and the consummation, in the future age without end, and he asks that the rudeness of his style be excused. through eternal glory. May it please you therefore graciously to accept my affection, declared in this brief account; and not to despise the simple, unadorned, and overly verbose style; but to take it in good part, for the benevolence with which you pursue our Order and Blessed John; that through the rusticity and inelegance of my writing that which I intend may not be hindered; nor delay be cast in the way of his canonization, by which end chiefly I let myself be induced by the prayers of the two Religious women named at the beginning, to describe the life of this Blessed man.

OTHER ACTS

For the Supplement of the more ancient Life, collected from his later Writers.

John of St. Facundus, Priest of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, at Salamanca in Castile (St.)

D. P.

Lest it be necessary repeatedly to interrupt the context of the aforetitled Collection, by citing for each point the Authors from whom we have collected this Supplement, I shall note them, named in the preliminary Commentary, in the margin in Roman * type, by the initial letters of their surnames. Thus Ant. will indicate Augustine Antolinez; Mar. Pedro Mariz; Val. Diego Valaurio (Valaurius), and my own name the customary letters D. P. It will be yours, reader, according to the degree of more certain knowledge with which I advised that each should be placed in the preliminary Commentary, to estimate the things related from them, when it concerns the Acts in the life; on the rest the several writers, inasmuch as they write of matters of their own time, deserve faith, and indeed the fullest. A single number will denote the Chapter; when a double one is set, the first will mark the part or book: for Mariz and Valaurio so divide.

CHAPTER I.

The earlier life of the Saint, up to his vow of entering the Religious life.

[1] The reason for the surname Sahagún, Where the rivulet Cea waters the plains of the diocese of León, there lies a town, having taken its name from the ancient monastery of St. Facundus, so that it is called Sahagún, as it were Sant-Hagun in the common dialect; while F is changed into H, C into G; as in Ahogar, "to suffocate." Here, in the year 1429, was born St. John, who, according to the custom then familiar among Ecclesiastics, laying aside his family surname of Castrillo, took also a surname from there along with the Clerical garb; and adorned it with the title of holiness, when he is called St. John of St. Facundus. There, under the care of the Benedictine Monks of that place, he learned Latin letters: there too he studied in the Arts, which we now embrace under the name of Philosophy. Then, having received the title of the Parish of Dornillas, which his own father had obtained for him, he passed into the household of Alfonso de Cartagena, Bishop of Burgos, through the intercession of a certain uncle of his, who was rendering most useful and most welcome service to the aforesaid Bishop in the office of steward, his age when he was ordained Priest: being recommended and taken into the household, now about twenty years old: and having reached an age suitable for sacred Orders, he was made Priest, in the sixth year after he had come to Burgos; with such great favor of his ordainer, that he wished both to be present and assist at the First Mass, and to have the newly-ordained priest as a guest at his table, on that nuptial day. Mariz, bk. 6. He then conferred on him a certain benefice in Tañebuis, and a Canonry in the Cathedral church itself. But this was of the lower order; for we have already learned from the writer of his Life that the one next to become vacant (namely from the greater ones) was offered to him, if he had been willing to remain in the Bishop's service. Mariz, ibid. The Abbot of St. Facundus also is said to have conferred on him a wealthy Rectorate, with two Chaplaincies then perhaps vacant, in the town of Sahagún, the conferring of which belonged to him, and the fruits of which John could receive, having substituted administrators for himself for the same.

[2] Exercises of piety at the Court. Sustaining with such supports the rank attributed to himself in the Episcopal Court; as much as his occupations permitted, he applied himself to exercises of piety, among which it was more frequent for him to visit the miraculous image of Christ crucified, which had its own altar in the church of the Augustinian Friars. Mariz, ibid. The history and miracles of that Crucifix one may read in Mariz, deduced at length from page 41 to 82. Here only this is relevant, that it once happened, while John was praying before that pious image, for the sake of obtaining health, by a nine days' devotion there, that a certain poor paralytic was cured: whose sincere faith John, estimating from the insistence of his praying, began also to join his own prayers more earnestly to that man's prayer for the same end; and he merited to be heard. For suddenly the sick man, feeling himself wholly healed, threw away the crutches on which he leaned, John being much gladdened at such a spectacle. And he in that very place asked to be received into the Order, that he might render perpetual servitude there to the beneficent Crucifix. Which thing added to John great stimuli toward applying himself to studies of piety: by which, the more he was affected, the less he began to value all worldly things, yet thereby in no way more remiss toward the service of his Prelate.

[3] Accustomed to prepare himself at length for the sacrifice of the Mass, and to apply himself to it with all the effort of his soul, he would withdraw from the altar to the choir and the customary Psalmody; during which he was a great edification to all. Thence, being most humble, he would more willingly betake himself to the services of the poor, whom he relieved liberally both from his own means, and his manner of life, full of edification. and from the revenues of his Lord. Valaurio, bk. 7. With like charity he consoled the sick; and in these he was such, that his own necessity brought him only late to a frugal refreshment of the body. This indeed he by no means treated gently; but subdued it with hairshirts, scourges, fastings, and vigils; wearied by which he would lie on the bare ground, placing some stone under his head. From his daily occupations he gladly withdrew some time for reading spiritual books: and returning in the evening from the bishop's residence, he would confer with the household about sacred and devout matters, then would give a good part of the night in his chamber to prayer, and to unrolling the sacred or moral Scriptures. Among which things he so pleased his Lord, that the latter, as if boasting about him, would often say: "I have in my service a most holy man; on whom I never fix my gaze, but I feel myself inwardly moved to his veneration." And truly, if it is honorable for a King to have Magnates in his service, how much happier than he is that Prelate, having in his ministry some great servant of God; since to serve God is to reign?

[4] There was in the service of the same Bishop, as I said, also his uncle, He refuses the inheritance offered by his uncle, or rather his stepmother's brother. Mariz, bk. 6. He, when he saw himself dying, wished to make his nephew heir of all his goods. But John without hesitation refused to admit the inheritance, and begged him to assign it to the dowering of his sisters, which was also done. Now the Bishop, who loved the deceased, wished to take upon himself all the expenses of caring for the funeral: and to leave the nephew no other burden than that at the obsequies he should deliver the funeral oration before the assembly. and at his funeral delivers an oration; And this succeeded for him so well, that how great a preacher of the divine word he would afterward become was sufficiently apparent: for to his natural eloquence there had by then been added no small amount of theological knowledge, acquired by frequent reading of good authors. This death was followed, after no long interval, by his father's death: on account of which, having set out for his homeland, he soon also buried his stepmother: and the due rites having been paid to each, he returned to Burgos, bereaved of father and stepmother, he abdicates his ecclesiastical benefices. resolved to free himself from the bonds of ecclesiastical benefices, by which he reckoned himself to be weighed down, not relieved, in his studies of virtue and sacred letters. He therefore took voluntary poverty as the foundation of the apostolic life which he was contemplating, beginning to preach at Burgos in the same church of St. Agatha, in which he had reserved for himself a slender little benefice.

[5] From Burgos he goes to Salamanca, How long he thus lived privately to himself is not easy to determine, since it is not precisely established in what year he came to Burgos, nor of what age he departed thence: yet that this was altogether mature, and certainly by no means youthful, I think already sufficiently proved, and the things he did at Salamanca will further prove; for thither a certain divine vocation brought him, troubled by civil dissensions, at that time when the whole city was burning with deadly dissensions, by reason of two noble brothers of the family of Monroy, slain in a certain quarrel by their closest friends of the family of Manzana, likewise two brothers. Mariz deduces the matter from the egg, from page 90 to 97; and imputes to the sluggishness of the Kings Henry III, John II, and Henry IV, that no remedy was applied to the ever more swelling bloody evil, for about sixty years. The other writers, that matter being passed over, unanimously judge it to have been done by altogether divine counsel, that John came to Salamanca at such a time, destined to be the city's Angel of peace. He had chosen for himself a lodging near the parish of St. Sebastian; Avila. He begins to preach at St. Sebastian's, where, when some had found him, who at Burgos had heard him preaching; they begged that he would be willing also there to preach on the feast of that patron Saint, the 24th of August. He obeyed those asking; and had present the Rector and Collegians of St. Bartholomew: to whom, when the apostolic zeal and most edifying sermon of the speaker had greatly pleased; he is admitted into the College of St. Bartholomew, they begged that he would be willing to be joined to their company, to enjoy the same conveniences as they for quietly pursuing his studies, and to be for them as a domestic Chaplain.

[6] That College had been founded, for fifteen Students and two Chaplains, in the year 1410 by Diego de Anaya, then still Bishop of Cuenca; and afterward, having become Archbishop of Seville, he had endowed it more richly, and had bound it by the best laws, In the year 1450 he is received there as Chaplain so that, with an abundance of temporal things, evangelical poverty seemed to be maintained, than which nothing is more conducive to the union of souls and the exercise of studies. Antolinez, 9. For its founder had established that no one was to be admitted there to whom a greater sum of annual income was available than twenty Aragonese florins; which sum, however, the changed value of the coinage, from the abundance of gold and silver, persuaded them at first to relax to a hundred, then even to two hundred Ducats, as Vergara testifies: who brings forward a notable monument of John's reception there, from the Chronicle of the College written in Spanish, whose words I render thus faithfully. "John of Sahagún, Canonist, was elected into this holy house in the year 1450, on the 25th day of January. He was an internal Chaplain: he is said to have worn its Beca (hood), and although the Chaplains, whether internal or external, are not wont to be noted in this Chronicle of the Collegians; yet it was fitting and reasonable, on account of the extraordinary holiness of this man of God, that he should be enrolled in the Catalogue of the same: because he is that true Israelite, in whom no guile was found; who on account of his goodness and the honesty of his life, and the integrity of his morals, was elected into the interior Chaplaincy." The same Vergara sets forth a representation of the old Collegiate habit, as belonging also to the Chaplains, and so worn also by the Saint; and he says it was and is of a reddish color; and the Beca, whose name he says is taken from the Italians (the Academicians of the Crusca teach that it signifies a band or fillet) — the Beca, I say, he so describes, that it not only flows from the shoulders to the chest, but almost like the Greek Episcopal Pallium, down the back to the heels; but of old it was rolled up above the head in the form of a crown, with flaps falling down to the temples. Now for that upper part a square clerical cap has been adopted, so that the aforesaid Beca now covers only the shoulders, forming a fold before the same chest, but flowing from the left shoulder to the ground: and so it represents John, not very happily according to the likeness promised, as I noted above, and rightly sets before the eyes only the modern habit of the Collegians.

[7] Besides the reception aforenoted, the old monuments of the College hand down nothing that can be written for certain. Yet it is commonly wont to be said, and that by a divinely-given light, he completed the Office, that when on a certain night he had laid himself down to bed, having not yet recited a certain part of the Hours; and recollecting it when the light was already extinguished, he could nowhere find it; for that cause God consoled him as he grieved, emitting a ray of light from a certain cypress standing in the middle of the courtyard, by the benefit of which he completed the remainder of that Office. But, as I said, this is by no means certain, since in no histories is mention of this matter found, and his statue is seen placed there above the door: nor in the old memorials of the College, in which far more minute things are reported; nor in the informations made for the Canonization, in which it would be a wonder that not even one of so many witnesses produced would have been present who (if he had known it to be true) would have been willing to affirm it. Thus Antolinez. The same I would say of that tradition, from which Vergara says it is held, that a certain olive tree, conspicuous to this day in the garden of the College, bowed itself to John as he passed by; on which account the Collegians passing there are wont, for the sake of honor, to bare their heads to it.

This is more certain; as also that of Alfonso Tostado, that the curators of the same College caused to be fashioned, above its door, on the right side, a statue of this their holy Chaplain, with this inscription: "Blessed Father John of Sahagún, fortunate offspring of the House of St. Bartholomew"; to which statue, on the left side, there corresponds opposite the effigy of Alfonso Tostado of Madrigal, Bishop of Ávila, who had likewise dwelt there, and died prematurely in the fourth year after John's entrance there; concerning whom that brief eulogy is current, on account of the multitude and variety of his writings:

"This man is the wonder of the world, who discusses all that is knowable."

[8] Moreover, although none of those who have written the history of Blessed John says precisely how long he lived in that College; yet from the tenor of the history it is gathered, After 4 years he left the College, that he lived there about four years: which elapsed, the holy man, seeing that on account of the occupations of the College he could not so freely have leisure to care for the salvation of his neighbors, gave up the place and dignity which he held there, and retained the habit of a simple Cleric, under which he was to be the Apostle of the people of Salamanca: yet it is not precisely known whether he undertook the office of preacher, with a stipend publicly assigned for it, before or after his departure from the College. Antolinez, 11. And having gone out from there, he betook himself to the house of a certain upright Canon, whose memory is to this day held in benediction, named Pedro Sancho, dwelling at the corner of the Torrecilla, next to the Bachelor Gil de Tapia: where (as Juan de Sevilla and Cardinal Antoniano write) he spent ten years, he stays ten years with Pedro Sancho, occupied all that time in the help of souls, by hearing confessions and preaching. To this time altogether belongs a certain memorandum, written in the margin of the Summa Bartolina, written on parchment at Pisa in the year 1383, and reverently kept to this day in the Convent of Salamanca, in these words: "I bought this book in the month of May, in the year 1456, from the Friars of the monastery of St. Paul of Burgos (studying, namely, at Salamanca). I gave the money to M. Pedro the bookseller. and in the year 1456 he buys the Summa Bartolina. It cost a thousand Moropetinos, which I gave him, in Royal florins and one denarius and … in his house within his tent." Thus Tamayo transcribes this memorandum in his Notes at the 11th of June. By Moropetinos I understand those which they now call Maravedís, a most minute kind of coin; but I would think it should not be read "in florins," but "12 florins."

[9] Every day he celebrated the sacrifice of the Mass, with many tears, he says Mass daily with tears, especially when he said it of the Lord's Passion, and at the very Communion; as the witnesses heard in the Processes, who knew him, report: and he was everywhere esteemed a holy man by the people, who had recourse to him in their necessities, that he might pray to the Lord for them. Antolinez, 12. Many also asked him to say Mass for them, thinking that his so devout celebration without doubt obtained from heaven the desired effect. He himself, he lives meagerly on the public stipend, who was wholly pious and full of compassion toward the wretched, gladly assented to their requests: yet he received no alms under the title of Masses, inasmuch as, besides a slender livelihood, which was supplied from elsewhere, he wanted nothing in this world but to serve God. For there had been assigned to him publicly three hundred thousand moropetinos yearly. A scanty sum; but sufficient then for a frugal and sparing man. He observed feast days with a peculiar reverence, not only interior, but also exterior: and to this end he then clothed himself in a more decent and better habit, of which he had two, one gray, the other blue.

[10] He had his hours divided between studies of letters and prayers: and for taking rest, some bundles of vine-twigs, with a stone for a pillow, arranged under the bedstead, he sleeps hard: which every night he put back, lest his servant (this was Juan de Santillana) should perceive it and reveal it. Some say that at the same time he publicly lectured on sacred Scripture in the University of Salamanca. But how would so great a lover of poverty have admitted the sustenance assigned to him by the city, if he enjoyed the revenues of such a Chair? Or how would so many witnesses produced, and asked whether they knew him living, have only answered, he does not seem to have held a Chair of Scripture in the University, that they knew him at Salamanca in the habit of a Cleric; nor have said that they knew him there as a Professor of sacred Scripture? Surely they specify many most minute things about him, by which they prove that John was well known to them. Thus far Antolinez; whom it is a wonder could have so forgotten himself, that what he here in chapter 12 so openly refutes, in chapter 21 he expressly affirms, on account of certain Annotations in the Bible, written by his hand. A trifling argument indeed: especially since he seems to have written them as a Religious, in which state no one says he was a Professor.

[11] This is certain, that the chief effort, in the last years before the change of his state, since he was wholly engaged in composing dissensions. was placed by John on quieting the dissensions which troubled the city. Mariz, bk. 17. To this his preachings mostly were directed: who, diligently exploring the places and times of the assembling factions, would betake himself there intrepidly: nor was he wearied, although the demon, contrary to his efforts, repeatedly stirred up the quenched fires, and many in the very heat of conceived fury showed themselves obdurate and inexorable. For he gradually softened all hearts, however stony, so that at last the city seemed to him quite another. Yet among these things it happened not rarely that there were found those who, ill-bearing the liberty of the admonisher, turned away from him as an enemy. deterred by no injuries of the obdurate. Thus (to spare more examples) it happened to him in a certain village of the district of Salamanca, where some nobles, relying on their wealth and possessions, exercised most grievous discords among themselves, and led a life unbecoming their birth. These expelled the preacher, troublesome to them, with ignominy and insults: yet he returned thither repeatedly, until, treating each one separately, he brought them all back to the duty of a Christian man. And although in those times there was hardly a noble family that did not aspire to be held the head of some faction, and so inflamed the fury of the people that no one could go through the streets without danger: yet to him alone was security granted, as the common pacifier of all.

CHAPTER II.

His vocation to the Order and his Profession therein. The offices he held, the peace of the city procured.

[12] Sound after the cutting of a stone, This labor, continued for several years, severely wore down the strength of his body: but especially the pains of the stone, growing so strong that a remedy had to be sought from surgery: which, when, by means of a vow to enter the Religious life, it had succeeded happily; he was established in his holy resolve, some days after the cure, as is gathered from the Processes. Antolinez, 13. For when he now seemed to himself well recovered, he met a certain poor man, so scantily covered with torn rags he gives the better of two garments to a poor man; that he might be called naked. This man begs him to bestow on him some clothing for the love of God, to cover his body: and there came to his mind the garment doubled for the worship of feast days, laid up at home; of which two, doubting which he should bestow, he judged that the better was owed to God, and gave the blue one to the needy man. But on the following night God heaped upon him such great graces, that another could relate of them only that God alone knows what he then experienced; and that he himself could express it in no words, except by saying that he had come to know what God can and will do, when he wishes some good deed to be rewarded. Antolinez, 14. That night surely was a day of his soul, such as he never beheld. This alone we know to have been heard from his own mouth, but what it was we cannot divine. and filled with inexplicable grace And so I do not say that in the person of that poor man Christ himself appeared, as to Saints Augustine and Gregory; or that he boasted of the garment received before the Angels, as is in the Acts of St. Martin; I only weigh this, that so great a concealer of the gifts divinely conferred on him could not restrain himself, he seeks the Augustinian habit; but once, exhorting the people to exercise liberality toward the poor, instead of other examples which he might have adduced, brought forward his own; but when about to narrate what God in return repaid him that night, he could explain himself no further, but added these words: "And at once I went to St. Augustine's, and received this habit."

[13] That monastery had, not so many years before, taken up the stricter observance of the Augustinian Rule, from the Convent of the Saints situated two leagues from Valladolid: where God had raised up certain of his servants, that in that solitude and poor little house they might lead a life intent solely on divine things, through reading, prayer, and meditation: among which they observed so rigid a silence, under a discipline then recently reformed that only on feast days did they converse among themselves, led by the Superior into the garden: but if anything had to be indicated to another during the week, it was done by signs. Antolinez, 15. For nightly rest there was given a handful of straw, on a cheap little bed with a coverlet. At night they rose for Matins. Their garment was of coarse, but black cloth, under which, in honor of the Mother of God, they wore a white scapular. The little that they had was common to all, except the habit; while in his cell no one was permitted to have books, not even a Diurnal, by which all were compelled to recite the Office in choir. and that most rigid. No one handled money except the one deputed for this; they used only a woolen shirt next to the flesh: but if necessity compelled the use of linen, the weave was only of hemp or tow. They fasted from the feast of All Saints until the Lord's Nativity; and from the second weekday (Monday) after Quinquagesima until Palm Sunday; and every fourth (Wednesday), sixth (Friday), and Saturday they ate only in Lenten fashion. On Fridays there was a common flagellation of the body, which in Lent and Advent was done also on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

[14] Received into the Convent of Salamanca in the year 1463, the 18th of June. The fame of such discipline being widely spread, soon gained for the Convent the name "of the Saints," and inspired in many the desire of emulating, and among the first the Convent of Salamanca, with such success that this came to be surnamed the Mother of the observance. Rarely then were Novices admitted: for from the year 1456 to 1461, only three are found received: Fr. Juan de Espinosa, Fr. Juan de Arenas, and Fr. Alfonso de Borja: after whom the first in the year 1463 was this Fr. Juan of Sahagún, whom soon followed Fr. Tomás Monroy and Fr. Pedro de Toro. He himself had received the habit from the hands of the venerable Father Fr. Juan de Salamanca: who committed his instruction to Fr. Juan de Arenas. The year and day John himself with his own hand wrote in Spanish in the aforesaid Summa Bartolina, the words rendered thus into Latin by Tamayo: "On the 18th day of June, in the year 1463, I received the habit in the monastery of St. Augustine of Salamanca, in which year the Dominical letter was B. On the Birthday of Saints Mark and Marcellinus, Martyrs, seven days before the feast of St.

John, seven days; and this was the sixth weekday (Friday), and the Bishop of Osma preached." That the same year and day is noted in the old book of Professions, Herrera asserts, to whom Tamayo adds as fellow-witnesses P. Fr. Antonio de Solís, and P. Fr. Pedro de Castro, in the Account of the Translation of St. John of Sahagún. And the same Tamayo says that from the said book, before the paraphrase of the Profession to be given below, these things are noted: "On Saturday, the 18th day of June, in the year 1463, Fr. Juan de Sahagún received the habit in this Convent. May the Lord give him grace and blessing, that he may persevere hereafter, to the good of his soul and the consolation of all." Hence not to be heeded are those who, from the Profession made on the 28th of August, the feast of St. Augustine, infer that the habit was received on its Vigil, as if Profession had to be made immediately after the elapsed year of probation.

[15] But although Novices are wont to be kept in great recollection: he is set to the care of the dining-hall, yet the fewness of persons and the straits of domestic affairs compelled them to commit also public ministries even to these, namely those of the infirmary and the refectory; useful also for this, that an experiment might be taken of each one's disposition and talent. Some days, therefore, after receiving the habit, the care of the dining-hall was entrusted to John; for which, although there was but a small little cask of wine, yet because he, as often as he drew from it, used on departing to sign it with the Cross, it happened that no diminution of the wine was noted in it, and he multiplies the wine. but it sufficed for the use of the whole Convent, until the new vintage filled the cellar, the wine abounding above the common measure throughout the whole region. Antolinez, 15. And this is the first miracle which we read the Lord wrought through the hands of his servant; whence grew the esteem of him as a Saint among the Religious.

[16] The year having passed, being admitted to religious Profession, he made it under this formula, which even now is found written in Latin in his own hand. Mariz, bk. 19. He makes Profession on the feast of St. Augustine "I, Friar Juan of St. Facundus, Bachelor in sacred Theology, witness and confess by this letter, that since the time of my probation in this sacred Religion and Society of the Order of the Hermit Friars of the most blessed Doctor our Father St. Augustine has elapsed; and my own deliberate will is, by God's grace to remain and persevere in the same observance of religion, to the praise and service of God, and in the same society to make express Profession; therefore I the aforesaid Friar Juan of St. Facundus, Bachelor, make express Profession, and promise obedience to almighty God, and to the blessed glorious and ever virgin Mary, and to the blessed and glorious Doctor of the Church, our Father Augustine; and to you Reverend Father Juan, Bachelor in Decretals, Prior of this our monastery or convent of St. Augustine of the city of Salamanca; to whom the Prior of the Convent subscribes, in the name and stead of our most Reverend Father Prior general of the whole Order of the Hermit Friars of St. Augustine and his successors; and to live without property and in chastity, in regular observance according to the Rule of our most blessed Father St. Augustine, all the days of my life until death. In testimony and faith of all which, I have here written with my own name. And I beg the Reverend Father Prior of this convent, that you receive this my Profession, and deign to corroborate it in your name and that of another Father present; and that all present pray for me, that eternal glory may be mine hereafter. Amen. Done on the twenty-eighth day of August, on the feast day of our Father Augustine. In the year 1464. Friar Juan, Prior; Friar Juan, Bachelor in Theology."

[17] Scarcely had he made his Profession, when it seemed good to the Superiors to entrust to him the care of the novices. Antolinez, 17. He is made Master of Novices, Certainly it is established that in the eighth month after it John was their Master, although it is not known whether he was so earlier. And he so performed that office, that although he was afterward made Definitor of the Province, he did not give it up, until they made him Prior of the whole convent. But released from this office, he returned to the mastership of the Novices, even while remaining Definitor, confirmed seven times in that rank (that is, in all the Chapters thereafter held as long as he lived); a rare thing indeed in this Order. Among his Novices was the Venerable Father Fr. Martín de Espinosa, afterward Definitor of the whole Congregation, a man of most holy conduct, and who afterward deserved to know those great favors which God showed to his servant during the sacrifice of the Mass. Definitor of the Province, Nothing is known of the method which he used in the instruction of those Novices, which, if it had been handed down to posterity for this age, would be a very great treasure. Thus far Antolinez. Whence then did Valaurio get those ten articles, which he so confidently sets down in book 1, chapter 17, as if he had found them written by the Saint's own hand? Valaurio, bk. 17. We will more safely believe him when he says, surely from the Capitular Acts, that John was elected Definitor in the year 1465, on the 6th of May; and Prior in the year 1471. John therefore was elected Definitor and 19, and finally Prior of the Convent of Salamanca. eight months and as many days after his Profession; and Prior, in the seventh year passed after it. Antolinez, 18. God had given him, for rightly discharging those offices, an extraordinary faculty of discerning spirits; and had added to him also the grace of knowing absent things, and of penetrating the secrets of souls. Hence, when he understood some were tempted, he blessed them, adding such admonitions, by which they understood that nothing of their thoughts was hidden from him. If he saw anyone fallen into sin, he mourned on his behalf and wept inconsolably. To these talents of his was added the fervor of prayer poured out for his subjects, and the rigor of penances for the same, which brought it about that all committed to him were not only true servants of Christ, but as it were living images of the same: as is attested by a man preeminent in learning and holiness, Master Villalobos, an Augustinian Friar and Professor of sacred Scripture in the University of Osma, in Treatise 2 on St. John the Baptist, declaring him with great fruit of his subjects: what it is to give testimony to Christ by works, and how everyone is obliged to be good; when he had said that any Christian ought to be a living Gospel; just as, setting on one side a Christian, on the other some Saint, nay Christ himself, they appear so similar to one another that you could not discern between them; "Thus," he says, "lived twelve of our Friars at Salamanca with Blessed John of St. Facundus."

[18] It had almost slipped out, that among the first cares of the Saint, after his Profession was made, Meanwhile, the care of extirpating factions resumed, was to abolish the factions which had sprouted again at Salamanca during the time when he, still a Novice, was kept from the pulpit. Mariz, bk. 19. For this matter he had set aside the fifth and sixth weekdays (Thursday and Friday), on which he obtained admirable effects in checking the rage of those savage men. Nor did the injuries and insults more often inflicted move him from his purpose: nay, even before the doors of those who were the leaders of the factions, he sometimes set up a pulpit for himself; fearing nothing, but openly declaring that by no danger, not even of death threatened, would he abandon his undertakings: and so, when he once preached at St. Martin's, "On a certain day," he says, "two men came to me threatening that they would take my life, if I went on preaching about these matters: but nevertheless it is necessary that I discharge my office. Hear me: for I shall be happy if I die for this; for I shall be slain because I have told the truth and rebuked sins." When it was reported to him that fuel was repeatedly supplied from without to the evil swelling in the city by the Royal Corregidor of Ledesma; he betook himself to him, intending to extinguish that fuel of the conflagration by prayers and tears. Valaurio, bk. 20. But by these the man was not bent: wherefore, having threatened with severe words the vengeance impending over him, he fears not death often threatened against him, he so failed to bend either him or his partisans, that some of these, as if to avenge Majesty injured in the Corregidor, decreed that he should be expelled from the town with infamy, and committed that sacrilegious decree to execution; but he, in no way moved by so atrocious an injury, said to his companion: "Let us return to Salamanca, to fulfill the office divinely enjoined on us: but if they expel me from here, let us observe the Gospel by which we are admonished: 'If they persecute you in one city, flee into another.'" And when he had returned, it happened that the ringing of two Parishes' bells was heard, called of Saints Benedict and Thomas, to which the chief factions used to gather, and thence to proceed as it were to war. Thither, therefore, he at once betook himself: but he was driven back by fists and kicks, and thrown backward into the mud: yet rising thence more courageous, the tumult being pacified and those who had run together withdrawing, he alone held the field.

[19] Nevertheless, the wretches returning again to madness, he began to thunder from the pulpit more vehemently. At which a certain Knight, as if he himself alone were being attacked, the arms of those who rushed at him being struck numb, flaring up, said: "Shall then so great a concourse of Nobles allow itself to be stirred, at the voice of one accursed hypocrite and infamous chatterer, so as to cease taking vengeance on its enemies, by an unseemly cowardice pardoning injuries? Come, servants, and beat that worst little Friar with cudgels." Now they, as ordered, rushed to the slaughter; but he, advancing to meet them, offered himself ready for the death which they were coming to inflict with great shouts and reproaches; and they would have inflicted it with drawn daggers, had not their arms divinely stiffened, with a trembling moreover spread through all their members so grievous, that they had nothing rather to do than to fall on their knees before the Saint, and to beg for safety and pardon: and when John had granted both, the spirits of all the rest died down. Another adds that the same happened on the feast and in the Parish of St. Thomas, and not only to the aforesaid servants of that Noble, but also to some of the opposite party, who, to prevent the crime, had in turn drawn their swords, in defense of their preacher. So indeed it is wont to happen in narrating matters, while each one in his own style and according to his own conception sets forth the matter, though received from one source: and hence it appears how much more conducive it is to our institute to have the Processes themselves about the Saints, and to report each thing in the unaltered words of the deponing witnesses, without any varnish of more polished discourse. But it is not easy to take care to write out examples of such, on account of prolixity, and still less excerpted in the way we would wish of the substance of the unaltered words. However it is, both Mariz and Valaurio say that, with those men thus first fixed in their tracks, then restored to themselves at the Saint's prayer, peace coalesced in that very place: in perpetual memory of which thing it was decreed, which is observed to this day, that in public processions the Crosses of both Parishes proceed together, alternating right and left each year.

[20] for this cause he also attends a wedding feast; Friendship was also confirmed by mutually contracting marriages: which, since the Saint did not disdain to grace with his presence, it happened that there was set before him a roasted bird

(whether a dove or a hen, the account varies), on account of which, when he was distressed, because he thought such a dish did not befit a poor Religious, whom it becomes to serve only necessity; suddenly the bird flew up out of the dish through the window, and left all full of admiration; and him indeed also with a wonderful consolation, that the pious Lord had thus provided for his desire to abstain, the good will of the hosts being preserved. Antolinez, 29; Valaurio, bk. 20. Yet again at another time it happened that in the month of November a feast was held at St. Lazarus's across the bridge, to which an enormous multitude of men had flocked; nor was the demon wanting to his own party, but sought his gain there, and stirred up sparks not wholly extinguished. The Saint also was present there, and he foretells that one who interrupts him will soon be slain. and, a platform being set up at the head of the bridge, he began to speak. But he was not heard, on account of the confused din of the crowd murmuring around. Wherefore, making some delay in speaking; then, as if rising up more menacingly, he said: "Hear the word of the Lord: for I tell you, that the first who shall stir up this crowd, and lay his hand to the hilt, will be slain in the sight of all. Stand here quiet; lest anyone wish to depart to sup among the dead." Notwithstanding this, some one man broke out, attacking the opposite party; and soon, in the sight of all, slain he fell dead. At which event the crowd being dismayed, John resumed his sermon, and said: "Did I not foretell that these men could not keep quiet? But let this be done: let it be done no more: take up this pulpit, and carry me elsewhere, and you with me." Thus he led the people over to the convent, not ceasing to kiss his hands and garments, and to commend themselves to him, as to an arbiter of divine justice: but he dismissed them, consoled, with his blessing, as a pledge of divine clemency.

CHAPTER III.

Certain virtues of John, the divine providence for his protection; he himself and others saved by him from the waters.

[21] The servant of God was of large body, of venerable person, The outward composition of his body of handsome, placid, and grave countenance: by whose aspect he allured the good to virtue, and struck shame into the wicked. Antolinez, 21. Mariz, at request, attempted to express him in true lineaments, as I gave them in the Preliminary Commentary, after no. 14. So great was his modesty, that although always of cheerful face, you would never have seen him laughing. Of easy and simple conversation, he delighted in the prudence and discourses of learned men. and pleasant conversation He detested duplicity and dissimulation in words: for he denied that the fraudulent have a good end. His speech was edifying, nor in his presence would anyone have dared to utter anything less religious. In every action shunning singularity and extremity, he walked as far as he could the middle way.

[22] The purity of his conscience Yet in seeking purity of conscience he acknowledged no moderation, since in the sight of God he understood nothing to be sufficiently pure. Hence he himself noted many things in himself, which to others would seem trifling or even ridiculous; he also guarded against many things out of tenderness of soul, of which others would take no account. Antolinez, 29. Thus he did not willingly eat country doves, because he said they had fed by theft from others' harvests. Thus he once took it for a great scruple, that he had tasted a cherry from another's tree: thus he refused to use a little ointment, which a servant of a certain friend had sent him without the master's knowledge, to cure the wound of his leg; until that man had asked leave of his master: and the utmost tenderness. thus he feared to kill even a flea troublesome to him, lest he displease God. So also he wished that his companion, to a place from which they were already one league away, should carry back a stone, which he had taken from a certain wall; declaring he would not go further, unless this were done either by himself or by him; and he added: "If you had placed it in such a spot to prevent some inconvenience, you would not be glad to have it taken from there: what therefore you would not wish to be done to you, do not do to another." From married women he would have accepted no alms, unless he had known they were given with the consent of their husbands, not even one egg, of which four at that time were scarcely worth one white coin. He once wished that a certain man should restore an egg taken by theft; and one woman three maravedís and a little silk.

[23] Most devoted to the study of prayer, he loved to spend a good part of the night on it: Prayer therefore, Matins being sung, he remained in the church, nor departed thence before he had finished the sacrifice of the Mass. Antolinez, 23. But what he here rather suffered than did, it pleases me to explain in the words of St. Thomas of Villanova, in sermon 2 on the Sacrament of the altar, speaking thus: "A certain man of our Augustinian family and religion, Friar John of St. Facundus, who at this time is venerated with wondrous zeal and excellent piety of the people of Salamanca, on account of the countless miracles continually wrought by him; when he performed the daily Sacrifice of the Mass a little too long, and lingered in it too spaciously; it happened that he was ordered by his Prelate, in virtue of obedience, to finish the Mass more quickly: concerning which he had more often, though more gently, been forewarned by the same on consultation. To whom the aforesaid Friar, because he could not pass over obedience, disclosed the whole secret, saying: 'Pardon me, I beseech, my Father: for I cannot indeed do otherwise: because daily I, a sinner, behold with these eyes our Lord Jesus Christ, shining in the Host.' At which words the Prelate, terrified, prostrate on the ground, asked pardon for the trouble caused: and gave him leave to linger as he wished." This I learned not from the same Prelate, but from a most grave man of our Religion, who had heard it from his mouth and reported it. Mariz, bk. 27. Thus far a Saint about a Saint; and thence it came about, that after his death either the painted effigies or the carved statues represent him with eyes fixed on the sacred Host, and such is seen to this day that alabaster one, which García Álvarez de Toledo, first Duke of Alba, had fashioned.

[24] by Alfonso de Orozco How laboriously John prepared himself for it, the disciple of the aforepraised St. Thomas of Villanova explains at greater length, himself also a man of great holiness, and an alumnus of the same Augustinian, not Franciscan (as Wadding wrongly among the Writers), Religion, Alfonso de Orozco, in that Life of St. John which Antolinez says was written by him, and so before the year 1591, in which he died on the 19th of September at Madrid, where the piety of Ferdinand, Infante of the Spains, moved by deeds done above the power of nature, raised his body from a humbler tomb to a loftier place. Thus Antonio Nicolás in his Library of writers of Spain, where you will find very many of his works enumerated, with a eulogy, that they all redolent of the Author's piety, the more to be accepted, because he had as the author of his writing Mary the Mother of God, at the time when he administered the House of the Augustinians at Seville, as he himself attests in his Confessions (for these too he wrote after the example of St. Augustine). Thus he: but although very many things are there magnificently and studiously enumerated, yet among them is not found the aforecited Life of John, of which as written by him Antolinez gives so certain a testimony, altogether worthy to see the light, for which cause too I have brought forward this matter about the Author.

[25] John used to say Mass in the chapel called of the Crucifix, from his image, set high there: of which no memory survives today, his preparation for it explained. although the Crucifix survives, raised above the altar, which is under a well-wrought vault, above the chapel of the most blessed Virgin, where the Relics of that Saint were long held in honor by the people. Antolinez, 27. He used to say Masses at the third hour of morning, because his spiritual hunger could not bear a longer delay. Thus when once he said it at St. Mary Royal near Madrigal, before the Nuns of that Convent, he stood not only rapt in ecstasy out of his senses, but even with his very body, Frequent raptures during it: raised into the air above the altar to half an ell. Valaurio, bk. 2, ch. 3. What he was then, in rendering thanks for so great a benefit, the Acts do not explain. In like manner it happened that the same man was found in his cell raised up one night by the Prior of the convent; who, going around the cells of his men at that time, when from John's cell he saw the brightness of reflected light, and suspected some misfortune; he roused several religious, as if to put out a fire; but having entered, he found a great light diffused throughout the whole cell, and in the midst of it the Saint praying in ecstasy; but of fire absolutely nothing.

[26] From such meetings with God, then, when he went out to preach, what wonder if he always did it with great fervor? Antolinez, 32, 36. But here he never appeared greater, than when chastity was to be praised, or the contrary vice to it reproved. From zeal for chastity he incurs the hatred of women, Once it happened that he so vehemently rebuked women who wore their breast bare in a too immodest way, that several of them ran together to stone him; and they would have done so, had not the rest of the assembly, understanding this, accompanied him all the way home. He himself, however, calmly said that it would be a great benefit of God, if it should befall him to die in such a cause. And when he preached at St. Lazarus's outside the gate of the city; he caused harlots to be brought there, yet he converts and helps many unchaste women, whose perdition he bore most sorrowfully: and God wrought many and wonderful conversions in them, through his inflamed words. And that the converted might not relapse once more into the same mire, he provided alms collected for their sustenance. He also labored much over others, whose dishonesty was less public, or even altogether secret, God revealing to him their state. Antolinez, 25. When this once happened to him in a sermon, he so turned his discourse, as if he had spoken only to a certain person there present: then, betaking himself to her house, he completed the conversion begun. At another time, as he was going through the city, a woman met him, penetrating the secrets of hearts: and asked for his hand to kiss; but he, knowing divinely the plan she had conceived of killing her daughter, found to be carrying a child in her womb; denied that he would give it to her, who bore a demon in her heart: wherefore she, troubled, and having followed John to his monastery, clearly understood from him the cause of the hand denied; and ordered to lay aside the detestable plan, when she understood that the author of the seduction would repair what he had committed, the girl being taken in marriage, who was to bear him both this one she carried in her womb and another son too, she allowed herself to be reconciled to her daughter.

[27] But as John was always solicitous for the divine honor, A nun reviling him, so God too guarded his fame; nor bore it with impunity, if anyone rashly loosed his tongue against him. This a certain Nun especially felt, named Catalina Romana, Prioress of the royal convent of Madrigal. She on a certain Friday in Chapter, when she had more sharply censured Mother Leonor de Betanzos, Prefect of the wardrobe, as prodigal of the monastery's goods, on account of too lavish affection toward the poor; added also certain words deriding the life and admonitions of John, which perhaps brought forward on her behalf she tried to use to excuse that liberality of the other. But on the following Monday, while the monastery's bread was being baked, from the kindled oven the flame burst out three times; and the first time indeed, sharpened into a point, it rose up to the roof, and withdrew into the oven, no harm being done. The second time it leapt out more vehemently, all the way to the place where Mother Catalina stood, as if about to swallow her up; but it only struck terror into her, withdrawing without harm: yet soon bursting out again, she is chastised by the flame bursting from the oven. and leaving the oven empty of fire, it spread itself throughout the whole bakehouse, and wrapping all who were working in it like a cloud, seemed to threaten death. Then Catalina, understanding that this happened on account of the words cast two days before against the venerable John of St. Facundus; with all listening, with a clear voice promised that she would never again speak ill of John: and immediately all the fire withdrew into the oven, Catalina openly confessing that, rashly murmuring against the man of God, she had deserved to be so chastised.

[28] Nor with less care did the same God guard the body of his servant, and snatch it from dangers, as if lifted up by the hands of Angels. Antolinez, 34. He himself, having fallen into the river, Thus once, having fallen into the river Tormes, and carried off by the waters for a fairly long space, he came out thence with his clothes entirely dry. Thus briefly Antolinez. Mariz, having pursued the matter through all the circumstances, says that it happened to him while reciting the day Hours as he went, that, wholly intent on prayer, he so approached the edge of the bank, that at last, his step failing, he fell with his whole body into the whirlpool, commonly called Castellano: for the same river has several whirlpools of this kind. And he fell in that place where a rugged rock rose, and that so high that one placed on its summit could not recognize someone standing below. There, therefore, between the rock and the bank, no less steep, the constricted river was very deep; and the Saint, nowhere seen for a quarter of an hour, was rolled under the waters, through that space in which the water is hurled down with enormous crash through three successive cataracts. Then first emerging, he comes out thence dry, once he was seen to walk upon them; until, approaching the bridge of the city, he reached, opposite St. Vincent's, a bank lower and fit for ascent. Meanwhile his companion, running about, sought men who would at least take up the venerable body: and so, as he himself approached the bridge, he was amazed to see a packed crowd, and proclaiming a miracle. For John had come out, with his whole garment so dry, as if he had not touched water; nor injured in any part of himself: but he, fleeing human applause, hastened to hide himself in his convent.

[29] A similar thing happened to him as he was returning from Palencia, whither the obedience of his Prior, for a certain urgent business, had sent him. and again. For when he had come to the rivulet which has the name Corpus-hominis (Man's Body); and had found it, otherwise always fordable, so enormously swollen, that no one presumed to cross; he himself, relying on God, drove his mule into it; and at once both were believed to have perished, swallowed by the waters, or the mule at most to emerge alone: but both, and he indeed not a whit wetted, escaped to the other bank: all who were there being amazed, and vying to venerate the Saint; especially since the sun, until then covered with clouds, began to show a clear day at that very instant in which John was restored to the land from the waters.

[30] But let other specimens too of the divine power in the waters, exerting itself through John, be brought forward. Antolinez, 21. As he proceeded through the city of Salamanca, there fell at his feet the desolate mother of a certain boy, lately fallen into a well, and he saves various people fallen into the waters. imploring help. He orders himself to be led to the well, as if he hoped to find him still alive; and although he saw that the depth was great, yet he let down his belt, taken from his body, there, and drew the boy up, as if the boy had been lifted on high together with the water itself, and so had grasped the sacred strap. The people run together, proclaim a miracle, venerate the Saint: but he, having found by chance a bundle of the cheapest fish, placed it on his head, and, shouting with a loud voice "To the fool! To the fool!" hurried off at a run to his convent. Valaurio, bk. 2, ch. 12. At Gordaliza also a boy fallen into a well was, by the prayers of the Saint, drawn out thence alive. To the same man's feet Benito Ramos brought the corpse of a child suffocated in the river, over a space of three hundred paces, and received it restored to life.

[31] Let us add here also certain other things. Mariz, 30. From the Beadle of the University, He makes a book that had been carried off to be recovered: to whom the Library had been committed, a book had been taken, very valuable both for the dignity of its matter and the price of its silver ornaments. He, foreseeing the loss to be imputed to his negligence, and thence the danger of losing his office, ran to the man of God for a remedy. He promises that he will commend the matter to God during the sacrifice of the Mass: and behold, after the elevation of the Host, there was present a man unknown to him, visible to no one else, who placed the book on the altar; which John, the Sacrifice finished, handed to the minister, to be carried into the sacristy, where he returned it to his friend, marvelously exulting. Consolation too with the same man found a woman, exceedingly afflicted, because the man who had given her the pledge of marriage, he foretells punishment to the covenant-breaker, despising her, had taken another wife; for he foretold that it would come about that she should see her injury divinely punished. Antolinez, 25. And she saw it: because that covenant-breaker was quickly captured by the Moors; and, ransomed from servitude, died a sudden death. Nor did it pass with impunity for two women to have held the sermons of the Saint so contemptuously, that to hear them, as if certain absurdities, they scurrilously invited one another. For both met a most wretched death, as also two women contumelious against the Saint undergo, one slain by her husband, as an adulteress; the other beheaded by sentence of a judge, because she herself had cruelly killed her own husband: of both of whom thus punished the Master of the Order of Alcántara makes mention, in a certain Spanish verse composed in the Saint's honor, having been made more certain of the whole matter by a letter of the Guardian of the Franciscans of Salamanca.

CHAPTER IV.

The holy death and burial of John; the first and second translation of the body into its own shrine.

[32] John was now in his sixteenth year in the Religious life, He foretells that he will die within the year, when, disdaining earthly things and longing for heavenly, he sighed with Paul, repeatedly ruminating those words, "Who will free me from the body of this death?" Valaurio, bk. 3, ch. 1. But understanding divinely that his vows were heard, he could not contain himself, but uttered the joy conceived in his soul through his mouth in this way. John was preaching at St. Blaise's with his usual fervor; when in the middle of the sermon he stopped, and with eyes raised to heaven seemed for some time to speak I know not what within himself, moving only his lips: then to the assembly, held in suspense with expectation, he said: and that he will be glorified by miracles after 10 years. "There is here before you a man who will die before a year passes, and then you will say, 'O how well Father of St. Facundus preached!' I tell you, that after ten years I shall preach still better." And indeed in that very year he died: and in the tenth year after he began to preach more effectively through miracles. The cause of his death is said to have been this.

[33] There were in the city two noble persons, so joined in impure love, On account of an impure cohabitation broken up that they gave scandal to the whole people. When John had taken upon himself to separate these from one another, and had them present at his preaching, he began so vehemently to hurl the darts of his burning words; that the young man, moved in soul, breaking the bonds by which he was held, followed his liberator to the convent; nor would he go out thence, but took up the habit of the holy Religion. To recall him from his undertaking, the woman, persistent, agitated by the frenzy of insane love, left nothing undone; and when she had said many insults to the Saint's face, at last she added that the year would not pass before he should pay her ready penalties. So when, within two months of these threats, John began to wither and to fail, and at last the physicians detected various signs of poison; it was by no means doubted poison (as is believed) being administered, that it had been given him by some fraud by that unhappy woman, and so the venerable man Alfonso de Orozco rightly called him a Martyr. We, however, leave that to be determined by the judgment of the Church, and we note that the Saint, at last fixed to his bed, and duly fortified with the last sacraments, having asked pardon of his sins from the Friars gathered around, expired, he dies a holy death. at the ringing wont to be given for saluting the Mother of God; that noble Novice too being present, who that night had been admonished by an angelic vision, or a dream divinely sent, that his master would expire on that very day.

[34] To the rain soon sent down from heaven Julián de Armendáriz adds, in the Life written in verse, that that frenzied woman, who had been the cause of the Saint's death, was at once as if by a divine hand laid prostrate on her bed, and, dissolved in tears, seriously grieved over the crime committed, The face of the deceased shines with wondrous splendor. and at last by the intercession of John rested in a happy end. Mariz, bk. 32. This is more certain, that the face of the deceased, the pallor of death cast off, bloomed again and shone with marvelous beauty; whence the Friars, affected with wondrous consolation, could not mourn his departure from them, whom they already proved by so manifest a sign to have been received into heaven and to intercede as a patron for them. Valaurio, bk. 3, ch. 2. Many attested this under oath; and among others, beyond all exception, Juan Fernández, Canon of the Cathedral Church, a man of extraordinary probity and learning, returning from the sight of him, with tears of great tenderness, thus spoke jubilantly to all who met him: "I come from the sight of my great friend, the devout Friar John of St. Facundus: and I affirm to you for certain, that from his face there go forth certain splendid rays, bringing great solace to those who gaze on it."

[35] Exposed in the church, the venerable body stood for two days, The body reverently viewed for two days, offering a devout spectacle to the citizens and dwellers of Salamanca, running together from all sides, and eager to kiss his hands and feet and habit: but when gradually, as popular devotion advanced, some began not only to pluck little pieces from his garment, but even to snatch the hairs of the holy head; and one too was caught attempting to cut off a finger; the holy deposit was withdrawn to the major chapel; and gratings being drawn across, and guards set, he is honorably buried, all nearer access was forbidden, until the body was given to burial, in a conspicuous place at the head of the church, where to this day it is honored, says Antolinez; adding that when miracles began to multiply there, namely in the year 1488, Juan de Sevilla, then Prior of the Convent, ordered the body of the Saint, together with his other Relics, to be laid up within a stone basin, which should be placed in the tomb, hollowed out to that depth which could receive the sick who would enter. Antolinez, 37.

[36] As miracles multiplied in these matters, that burial-place began to be frequented even more. Mariz, bk. 2, ch. 2. So that the Friars might comply with the devotion of the peoples, and it is honored by a shrine built above. they made a small shrine above it, with a little altar, for Mass to be said there, during which something of the Relics was given to be kissed. Meanwhile the body itself was so badly guarded, that there were not lacking those who feared lest, at the fame of the miracles celebrated throughout all Spain, some more powerful of the Magnates should be moved, to diminish it notably for his devotion, or even to carry off the whole by stealth. That this inconvenience might be met, the matter being maturely deliberated, on the 16th day of December of the year 1533 there assembled for this ten chosen Religious, In the year 1533 ten chosen Friars, namely Fr. Diego de Plasencia Subprior (for the Prior was abroad), Fr. Pedro de Castro, Fr. Pedro Aviles, Fr. Mateo de Carrates, Fr. Miguel Lezano, Fr. Francisco Mata, Priests; and two Clerics, Fr. Juan de San Vicente, and Fr. Francisco de Caneto; and Fr. Julián de Torres, Lay-brother, to complete the ten; as Fr. Jerónimo Román narrates, in part 2 of his Ecclesiastical History of the Spains, chapter 7, which is on the Life of St. John; saying that all were of the elders, men of great religion and most of them of extraordinary learning.

[37] Those ten, about the twelfth hour of the night, while the rest sang Matins in the choir, having dug up the body, separate it from the others buried there, assembling in the place where they believed the body to be; and having lifted out thence the bones of the other bodies, which they nonetheless thought to be those of their elders, more illustrious by the fame of virtue, and therefore set apart from the common burial; they took a well-basin, or stone trough (as the Chronicle calls it), serving for washing clothes; within which one of them, Fr. Mateo de Carrates, set apart and distinguished those things which seemed to all to be St. John's, according to tradition; and arranged and fitted them together, as well as he could. The same was then done with the bones of the others, according to their proportion among themselves. Nevertheless there remained in the minds of most a doubt, and they bury it more deeply in the stone basin: whether that which they had set apart as the body of St. John was in truth indeed his own: but P. Master Alfonso de Córdoba ordered all doubt to be laid aside, saying he was certain that it was the same. And asked the cause of his knowledge, he said that Fr. Juan de Sevilla, who had hidden it there, had revealed the whole matter to him under secrecy, on account of the close friendship he had with him. Thus made certain, they again arranged the holy body, as well as they could, and hid it in a well-deep place of the same chapel, so that thereafter it could not so easily be found. Yet, lest the place be given altogether to oblivion, they consigned its memory to the cartulary of the monastery, the signs by which it could be found being expressed, when some great cause should advise seeking it.

[38] Thenceforth the devotion of the Friars and people more remiss, As time proceeded thereafter, devotion toward the sacred deposit grew cold, nor was any longer any special care taken of the aforesaid chapel; wherefore popular devotion too ceased, and the miracles ceased; until God raised up the spirit of Fr. Diego de Valderas of Salamanca; who, mindful of his old devotion toward St. John when he was a novice, and having become Sacristan of the monastery, in the year 1566 began to adorn the aforesaid chapel, to arrange the lamps, to procure Masses to be said there, and to announce the holy man's passing to be celebrated annually. Hence devotion, now almost extinct in the people, began to be revived, miracles to be renewed, votive offerings to be hung up for benefits received; in the year 1566 it is revived, of all which, since the aforesaid Friar was held the author, great favor and authority accrued to him among the people; relying on which, he began to think of a more ample and more adorned chapel (for the old one seemed too cramped and mean). To his good will the illustrious Collegians of St. Bartholomew contributed, and a new shrine is begun to be built: bestowing a generous alms to that end. Thus a shrine of excellent work, and indeed perfect for the standard of that time, was begun; in the midst of which there should be raised a magnificent tabernacle, suitable for receiving the sacred deposit. Meanwhile the place was sought in which so great a treasure lay hidden; permission too was asked of Don Pedro González de Mendoza, Bishop of Salamanca, that it might be brought into the public light.

[39] meanwhile the sacred body lifted out thence He committed his office to Don Luis de Alcocer, Provisor of the Cathedral of Salamanca, and Governor of the Diocese: who on the 7th day of August 1569, when he had come to the place; P. Fr. Antonio de Velasco, Prior of the monastery, with the permission of the aforesaid Provisor and before all his Religious, opened the repository of the sacred Relics; and found them arranged as was said above, a most sweet odor breathing out from the stone containing them, as it was opened, as is held from the notarial act drawn up thereupon. Then all the bones, as they were arranged, he placed back in a walnut-wood chest, well wrought and most clean, and that locked with two keys: and covered with black velvety silk he placed it on the shoulders of his Religious, it is transferred into a new chest: and processionally carried it above the chapel of the Mother of God, to the altar of the Crucifix, with crosses and candles, with Psalms and the Canticle Te Deum laudamus. The keys were so distributed, that the one which was of the inner little chest should be handed to the aforesaid Provisor, present there and presiding; the other two of that larger walnut chest should be entrusted to the monastery: of which a public instrument was soon written, Pedro Carincus, royal Scribe, being called for it: to whom subscribed first the Provisor, then six Collegians of St. Bartholomew, Doctor Rota then Rector of the College, and the Licentiates Antonio de Lara, Juan Gómez Lezignana, Bernardo García, and Miñaya. There were present besides many grave and honored men, and among these Don Juan de Mendoza, brother of the Duke of Infantado, cousin of the Bishop of Salamanca, and afterward a Cardinal: who confessed himself especially bound to John, for his deliverance from a grave infirmity, with which, dwelling at Salamanca as a student, he had labored.

[40] There the holy Relics rested, until the fabric of the new chapel was completed, which is then brought into the finished work, and of the tabernacle designed for receiving them; on which this Epitaph was inscribed: "The Augustinians of Salamanca, from the offering which the people contributed, to John of Sahagún their brother, a man holy while he lived, set this up after his death." Avila seems to have described the matter more distinctly, when he says that in his time, that is at the end of that century, the holy Body rested in a well-wrought tabernacle, around which ran an inscription conceived in Spanish words for the common people's grasp, to be thus rendered into Latin: "The Augustinians of Salamanca, etc." as above. "In this tabernacle is buried the body of holy Fr. John of Sahagún. The Saint died on the day of St. Barnabas, in the forty-ninth year of his age" (so namely it had then begun to be believed, from I know not what badly drawn-up reckoning) "but under the tabernacle itself" (says Avila, continuing his narration) "is a devout altar, at which the Saint used to say Mass, girt with an iron grating, which, made from alms contributed by the devout people, has this Latin Inscription."

[41] Then in the year 1589 fire seized the monastery; and when even the roof of the church was now burning, and in the year 1589 withdrawn from the fire of the church, the first care of the Religious was to withdraw from the flames the most holy Eucharist and the body of Blessed John. Mariz, bk. 2, ch. 2. Them Don Pedro de Zúñiga, Knight of the Habit of St. James and Lord of the towns of Cisla and Flores-de-Ávila, received into his house; and leaving it empty for such worthy guests, he removed elsewhere: but the sacred deposits were carried for the time being to the Oratory of the College of St. Bartholomew, until a suitable receptacle with an altar should be prepared for them in one of the lower halls of the said house, it is for the time being kept in a suitable place, in which the Friars might perform their Offices by night and day, and at the altar there erected might say Masses before the body of Blessed John, placed above the altar itself, with much daily light of candles, and a concourse of citizens thither. The damages of the fire then being repaired — by which only the roof of the church had burned — the sacred objects were brought back into it with a solemn procession; and the Most Holy being laid up within its lofty tabernacle, at its feet above the altar and then it is put back in its former place. was placed the body of St. John. Which done, and the community of the Religious having gone off to supper, the vault of that very shrine collapsed, under which a little before all had proceeded, about to place the sacred body there where it is now honored: which vault, had it collapsed a little sooner, would both have crushed them with many others, and broken the chest which they were carrying.

CHAPTER V.

Various miracles of the Saint, especially in paralytics and the lame, from Antolinez.

[42] These things being deduced into one connected account from Mariz, I come to the miracles passed over by Juan de Sevilla, A blind man enlightened at the tomb, and to be read in Antolinez from chapter 46 onward: where, when he had said of the tomb of John, that which Damascene says of the tomb of the Mother of God, that it is the medicine of the sick and a living fountain of salvation. Antolinez, 46. For the confirmation of this saying, "no small part," he says, "is played by the blind man, who, as soon as he set foot there, again obtains blindness. recovered his sight: but enlightened also with an interior light, he first corrected his vow, and asked that it might again be taken from him, if it were not for the salvation of his soul. But God, assenting to his wiser petition, held grateful the sacrifice offered to him of the eyes received, A contracted girl once and gave him back blindness. By the same there entered a contracted girl; who, when in the sight of all she had recovered the free use of all her members; as she was unaccustomed to labor, she went on to the tomb of the Saint and to the door of the church, or even through the streets, to beg her food as she was wont. The Augustinians admonished her not to lead her life thus idly, and is cured again. but to hire herself out to some service; otherwise it was to be feared lest God should chastise her as ungrateful for the benefit received. It happened to her as they had foretold in vain; the infirmity by which she was formerly held returned; and then first seriously repenting, the poor little thing wished to be admitted again to the tomb; but she did not obtain it before she promised that she would use her health better, if it were given her again; as she also did, made partaker of her vow."

[43] Many other sick people, from various diseases, obtained health at the same tomb, before much people, who could scarcely be torn away from there on that account. But a singular thing happened to a certain young Knight, whose name was Martín Arias Maldonado, Disturbing one who mocks those crowding to enter, son of Rodrigo Arias Maldonado, of Salamanca: who, when he had come to the burial-place of John together with his parents, led by curiosity rather than religion; and the church being full of people, and two Friars at the door of the tomb, to prevent those wishing to enter from being too crowded together; that man, seeing so great a crowding, stretched out his right arm, and as if in jest said to the Friars: "Take this too, and put it in the tomb." Scarcely had he spoken those words, his arm withers, when he felt his arm stiffen; whereupon, his mind being moved soon to penitence, and the whole people too, and especially each parent commiserating, and on repenting he is healed. all began to entreat the Saint, that, pardoning his youthful levity, they would restore the former use of his arm to the amended man; which they also obtained, when, let into the tomb with him, after prayers and vows poured out there.

[44] Moreover, that John might be shown like to the Apocalyptic Angel, who set one foot upon the sea, The Saint appearing in a tempest succors those invoking him: the other upon the land; his power appeared also in the sea, when, a tempest having arisen, a certain ship began to be in peril, laden with many travelers; to whom, invoking him with a concordant vow, he appeared, in a great light and in the Augustinian habit, and, as they looked on, directed the ship to the harbor of safety. Antolinez, 47. Equally miraculous was his intercession proved in the monastery of St. Ursula of Salamanca, where the Abbess held a certain innocent Nun bound in prison. She, remembering the miracles also to a Nun shut in prison, wrought in manifold ways by Blessed John of St. Facundus, invoked her helper, and was heard. For he was present one of the nights, and, knocking on her pillow, roused her from sleep, and promised that she would be led out thence on the next Friday; as, by the command of the Abbess, it actually happened.

[45] In the same Salamanca, a certain married woman was afflicted with a grave pain in the side; and in that affliction, invoking John, and to a woman with pleurisy, she was first divinely bathed in copious sweat; then, that she might know the author of the benefit, he himself deigned to appear to her, clad in the customary habit of the Order; and with a cheerful and splendid countenance, approached the bed; where, bending his knees before the little bed, he so persevered the whole night with her, who was so absorbed in flowing solace, (whose son too he heals of a hernia) that when in the early morning the household, approaching, offered her something to eat, she could indicate by a sign of her hand only, that they should not disturb her. And the Saint disappearing, she rose healed; and the little child, whom she had with a hernia, she carried to his burial-place, and carried so many times (for it does not always please God at once to hear those asking) until she obtained health for him, the sign of which was given by the bands falling off along the way, and to another woman sick from a miscarriage. with which she had bound the little one. Another woman of Salamanca too, from a miscarriage which she had suffered, was lying sick for the third month: who, when on the vigil of the Lord's Nativity, desiring to keep that day more festively, she had commended herself to God, as soon as she closed her eyes she saw his servant about midnight, who, stroking her feet and arms with his hand, sent her away healed.

[46] In the monastery of the Dominican nuns of Zamora, which they call of St. Mary of the Ladies, and which was of the stricter observance, At the same tomb are healed Lucrecia de Mello discharged the office of sacristan in the year 1488: who, while she was fixing the clock, having slipped, suffered a leg fractured above the ankle. Antolinez, 49. To this woman no cure, however diligent, applied had been of any benefit, but, like a paralytic, she could move only a single step with supports, and that very painfully; nor could she rise from the place where she had sat down, without the aid of one lifting her. But hearing the fame of John, working miracles at his tomb, she asked and obtained (for not even then was so rigid an enclosure yet kept) that she might be allowed to betake herself to Salamanca, A Nun paralytic from a fall, having taken, according to the Rule of St. Augustine, as companions, Juana Rodríguez de Ocampo Subprioress, and Francisca Guadalajara. There went with her likewise certain other persons, expressed in the Process; with whom on the 18th of July, on Friday, having entered the tomb, she returned healed, no longer needing any support; but leaving there both crutches, which she had been wont to use, in testimony of the miracle.

[47] another, with one leg shorter than the other, At Salamanca, in a monastery of the same Order and name, another Nun, named Teresa Rodríguez, sprung of humble birth, had had one leg much longer than the other from the beginning of her life, now prolonged to her fortieth year, whence her gait was rendered altogether awkward and shapeless. She on the 19th of July of the same year, toward evening, together with Isabel Garabita, one of the elders, came to the church of the Augustinians; having entered there three times, and having entered the tomb, on that Saturday indeed she did not receive health; but spending the whole night in prayer and making vows, she persevered in the church also through the Sunday following; and toward night, having entered again; again, walking no better, she came out. at last she comes out healed: Nor even so did she lay aside hope, but rather persisted in prayer until midnight. Then, having entered a third time, she covered her ill-formed foot with the very earth which she found there, and in that position began to recite the canticle of Zechariah, "Benedictus," as if sure of a divine visitation. But between the twelfth and first hour, as if having received a sign that she should bend her knees, she prostrated herself in them, wholly free from the inveterate evil of so many years.

[48] At Toro, in the family of Portocarrera, there was a maidservant, fixed to her bed for the third month, called Inés Larez; so wholly paralyzed as also a certain maidservant, that she could not be raised from her bed, except together with the blanket. Antolinez, 50. She, when she had drawn near in spirit, where she could not in body, and had made a vow of visiting the tomb; began to be so much better, that soon she could rise from the bed, and, aided by crutches under her armpits, though with difficulty, manage a step. Hoping therefore to obtain complete health, she urged the household to carry her to Salamanca as soon as possible. When she had come thither, sitting on a woman's saddle, and carried by a beast, in the company of two men; she entered the tomb with the same trouble indeed and the same crutches, and came out without them, though with a step not yet quite firm. These things were done on Monday, the 21st of July, 1488; and on Thursday the 24th of the same July, likewise a man, Antonio Martín of Ciudad Rodrigo, wholly paralytic for more than two years, brought forth from the same tomb the free use of all his members; as also a little boy of Salamanca, named Juanico, son of María Velázquez; who, maimed in the left leg from a paralysis of one year, a boy, dragged his foot along the ground, touching it with the toes only.

[49] As much happened on the same day to María González of Mallorca, who, taken in her feet and hands, could not move by herself; a woman, and on the 23rd of July, Wednesday, having been carried to Salamanca, was led into the tomb on Thursday. As much also experienced a certain Cleric, called Pedro Magister, Archpriest of Castro-nuevo, a Cleric, who from an infirmity had remained maimed for a whole year now; and with his body greatly swollen could walk only with difficulty and very little: but on Thursday the 17th of July, having come out of the tomb, he used a firm and strong step before all: which he also attested by his oath before the Notaries. Then on the following Saturday, the 19th of July, Fernando de Villar, of Toro, and two limping men: paralytic for a year in the middle of his body, and unable to move himself anywhere without supports, came out without these, yet still with some trouble. And on the 26th, Pedro Rodríguez of Bustillo, limping for twenty years on one foot, and touching the ground with its toes only, after Confession and Communion, walked thence upright. On the same day also Francisco de Robilio, for eight years carrying a withered leg, with much trouble; having set out with the said Pedro Rodríguez from the place of his dwelling to visit the tomb of the Saint, and likewise in the church of St. Augustine prepared by holy Confession and Communion, likewise came out healed, and firm equally on both feet.

[50] Catalina, a poor little married woman, at Toro had suffered a miscarriage in the month of January of the year 1488; At the touch of the sepulchral earth. and thenceforth from the waist down remained so paralytic, that she had to be moved from one side to the other by others' hands, until the day of St. Barnabas, when first she began somewhat, though with great difficulty, to walk upon crutches. Antolinez, 51. So on a certain day, as she went out of her house to the church, Luis de Deza, accompanying her, a paralytic woman is healed, asked whether she wished some of the sepulchral earth of Blessed John of Sahagún, advising her to take it devoutly, if she desired to be healed. She answered that she had long desired it, but had thus far not been able to obtain it. But having received it, she would not, out of reverence, apply it to herself; but asked a certain minister of her church of St. Salvador to perform that office for her. And behold, she received so much strength thence at once, that without difficulty she walked about a fairly long space, yet not without crutches. But thinking that the complete benefit was reserved to the tomb itself, she caused herself to be led to Salamanca; and arrived there on the 12th of July: and on the 13th entered the tomb greatly limping, and with legs and feet most cold: through which she felt a sudden heat diffused, and another, as soon as she touched that sacred earth: and having come out she walked through the whole church, yet with some trouble still. The same had happened to Mayor Ruiz, a married woman of Salamanca, and a little girl unable to walk. on the 30th of June: and on the 11th of July another miracle was wrought in the daughter of Juan de Morales, dwelling at Bonilla de la Sierra; who, paralytic in the left side from the ninth month of her age, until the fourth year of her life had been able to form no step; but then had begun to walk somewhat, leaning on the walls, with one foot and hand twisted: but she came out of the tomb healed, though limping a little, as if to the memory of the benefit received.

[51] Of Francisco de Luzena (Jerónimo Román calls him "de Ledesma"), a citizen of Segovia, The same earth applied removes a film from the eye, a film had grown over the left eye, so that he saw nothing more with it. He, full of confidence, entered the tomb on the 9th of July, Wednesday, 1488: yet he was not made partaker of his vow, although he persevered there praying long enough: nevertheless he returned one and another day up to the sixth, experiencing no help even then. Antolinez, 52. But carrying thence some of the earth he said: "Here I shall altogether find that which I seek": and approaching the nearby shrine of the Mother of God, he cast himself on his knees, and with his hand applied that earth to the film clouding his eye. And behold, as amber draws straw, so the earth drew the film to itself; which, falling to the ground, and seen to have the color of chalcedony, was soon dissolved into white foam: but the eye appeared all pure and clean. To the same burial-place came, lame for ten years more or less, Catalina Martínez of Zamora, Two lame people are healed. on the 15th of July of the same year, having first confessed her sins, and refreshed with the sacred body of Christ; and she carried away the desired grace. Nor had Juan de Bonilla, who suffered the same inconvenience at the same time, and walked only on crutches and that with difficulty, dwelling at Barco of Ávila, a less propitious Saint: who, when at Alba de Tormes he had heard the Salamanca miracles narrated, with no delay interposed set out on the way; nor had he yet reached the city, when he experienced that he had not undertaken a vain labor; since he began to walk much more easily; and the tomb with devotion having entered on the 16th of July, came out thence sound and wholly firm.

CHAPTER VI.

The remaining miracles, from Antolinez.

[52] On the aforesaid 16th of July, to the tomb of the Blessed came Juan de Liévana of Zamora, who had his feet so hindered, now for three or four years (namely from that time when the Portuguese King had besieged Zamora) that, walking on crutches, with each step he scarcely advanced one palm, but afterward walked firmly, yet with a slight limp. Antolinez, 52. To the same had come, one day indeed earlier, María, daughter of Pedro Capillis, herself also of Zamora: who, paralytic from the preceding day of Pentecost, had been unable to move herself from her bed: which had happened to her from a certain pain in the right side, which had held her a whole year; but she was not cured until the 17th day, after she had entered the tomb four times. Yet she too afterward limped a very little, likewise one suffering in the stomach. so that a trace of the miracle wrought in her might be left, as the holy man Alfonso de Orozco says. And Juan Fernández of Ciudad Rodrigo, suffering for seven years from an infirmity of the stomach, with a tumor projecting like a fist, and gradually growing and open on one side; came on the 18th of July, and was freed from the former trouble; but returning the next day, also from the second.

[53] Helena de Benavides of Salamanca, most devout toward Blessed John, whom she had known from her infancy; Of matrons devout toward the Saint among the other afflictions of this life felt not the least, the infirmity of a certain most beloved little grandson of hers, laboring with grave fevers. Antolinez, 53. For him, intending to seek health, she brought him into the tomb of John: but it so far profited the boy nothing, that within a few days, brought to the last extremity, he lay now as dead in his cradle; the nurse sitting by it, and with loud cries summoning the grandmother. She ran up, and found him still breathing, but at the last; for at the third gasp he expired. So they took the dead child out of the cradle, and laid him out on a pillow, to be buried the next day; which done, and a candle lit for the funeral, they went away, to bewail the deceased. Then Helena lovingly remonstrated with her Saint, the dead little grandson is restored to life. and demanded back her grandson: "Whom," she said, "if you give back, I will have clothed for a whole year in the habit of your Order: but if, grown older, he wishes to enter it, in this too I will be a helper to him." Nor did her prayers go in vain. The boy whom they had left dead in the evening on the pillow, when morning came began to weep. The grandmother soon ran up to the voice known to her: whom, as soon as the infant saw, now sound and well, with a smiling face he called "Mama," for he had not yet learned to say more.

[54] Invalid and contracted for five years, Juan de Mondragón, an inhabitant of Mondragón, which is a little town of Biscay on the borders of Guipúzcoa, taken in his feet for about five years, could scarcely move himself a little and with difficulty; and could not use his contracted arms and hands, to clothe himself or to carry food to his mouth. He, when he had seen a certain letter, teaching how many miracles God wrought upon those who went into the tomb of Blessed John of Sahagún; saw that they sprinkled with earth taken thence a woman who had now suffered fevers for a whole month, and she was immediately healed. the sudden cure of a feverish woman being seen, Excited by such a spectacle to take confidence, he set himself on the way toward Salamanca: on which, although he was much wearied, yet he went on the more courageously, the more expressly he felt his strength increasing for him, in proportion as he approached the city; and having entered it on Monday the 4th of August, in the oft-mentioned year 1488, he came to the monastery of St. Augustine, he goes to the tomb and is healed: and Confession being made, he spent that wakeful night in the church; but at the next light he went into the tomb, and returned from it sound, moving his hands and feet wherever he wished.

[55] Almost the same happened to a certain young man Diego, born at Trujillo, The same happens to three other paralytics. who, having endured fevers for a whole year, had remained wholly paralytic, nor could he move himself in bed: and when he had remained in this state one month, he began to be better, yet one of his legs remaining hindered; and at last he returned to the former paralysis of his whole body, not without the greatest torments. He here asked his parents to take care to carry him to Salamanca; and being somewhat better on the way, he completely recovered in the tomb, into which he was let down on Tuesday the 29th of July 1488. From the same place likewise came out sound Juan de Párraga, of Ciudad Rodrigo, hindered in arms and legs for more than five years; who, if ever he was a little better, could walk only with crutches, and with another assisting him, a very little. But carried to the tomb, in it he began to be wholly bathed in sweat, which was the beginning of health, only his feet retaining some swelling. In like manner there was healed in the same place Sancha Ordóñez, from the monastery of the Ladies of Zamora; who had carried paralytic legs for nine years. Antolinez, 54. By these and other miracles the faith of many sick people, being animated, made them come more frequently.

[56] A woman is cured, carrying a hand pierced through and useless, A woman of Ciudad Rodrigo, who through imprudence had pierced her hand with an iron spit, thereafter kept it maimed and inflexible for sixteen years; but from the tomb carried it away sound. As also there came out thence sound a certain poor man of Salamanca, whom certain neighbors of his had carried in, placed on a chair; and whom they had brought, unable to move his feet at all, after two hours, returning, they found cheerfully leaping. Likewise another paralytic of Salamanca, wont to creep along the ground on his hands; intending to render thanks to his savior, asked and obtained to be received to the habit in the monastery of St. Augustine. Another too, brought on the day of St. Lawrence upon a beast, and four paralytics: recovered with a preceding sweat: and Master Francisco, an Apothecary of Sahagún, coming with his wife who was hindered in the arm, he himself having a leg useless from a similar paralysis; rejoicing that he and she carried away health from the tomb, gave occasion to García de Cadueldes of Moratilla, whose mouth and eyes had remained distorted from a certain shock; that he too should be willing to try the same remedy, and he tried it with fruit.

[57] Inés Núñez, a Nun of the convent of the Annunciation at Salamanca, which is commonly called St. Ursula's, had a cancer eating away her left breast: but when she had prayed half an hour within the tomb, she felt a vehement burning in her breast; the cancer of a Nun is healed, and the cloths placed on the wound to be loosened: which removed, she found her breast clean and sound. Antolinez, 55. With like success there entered there a certain woman of Córdoba, hindered in her arm and with her hand contracted into a fist: who, feeling a vehement heat in them, began to call out to her sister present there, to help her. But ordered to keep quiet, a little after she came out wholly sound. The Licentiate too, Pedro Manuel of Madrigal, Auditor of the Royal Chancery of Valladolid, given up by the physicians of Queen Isabella, on account of an abscess about the stomach, joined with a burning fever, wished to be carried to the tomb of the Saint at Salamanca: which, since on account of the extreme danger he could not obtain; he drew near in affection, and the abscess of a royal Auditor; where he could not in body; and vowed a novena, if he recovered, to be celebrated there. Scarcely had he uttered the vow, when he began to be better; and the danger being dispelled, not yet fully sound, he betook himself to Salamanca: where he had Mass said for himself at the altar nearest the tomb; then having entered it, he fell prone to the ground, and within a quarter of an hour felt his stomach by that touch wholly healed, as if he had never suffered any ill. Then five years afterward, he incurred an infirmity of the stomach different from the former; and remembering his benefactor, he returned to the same place, performed a novena, and came out from the tomb sound.

[58] A certain little girl was sick to death at Salamanca: and her mother brought her to the tomb, and took care to have Mass said there: and very many others, hindered or paralytic: after she came out thence, she went on her own feet to the chief altar. Antolinez, 56. But when on another day she brought the little daughter back to the same place, the girl, only a year and a half old, with no one lifting her, walked upright to the burial-place; and thenceforth had full health. This too received another girl, whose hindered leg made her gait so difficult, that the bone of that very leg resounded with a loud crack. Likewise a dweller of Salamanca, carried by cart from the field which he cultivated, wholly paralytic; likewise a woman of Ledesma paralytic, and another contracted down to the feet; another again lame in the right leg from a ten years' paralysis. One contracted in the right side, and another in the whole body, yet suffering more vehemently in the loins and left side. Likewise one for ten years unable to move either legs or arms; and another, having the same members loosened for five years; then a paralytic for four years. All which miracles if they do not suffice to obtain canonization, I know not what at last would be sufficient for it.

[59] I add nevertheless, that Francisco de la Peña of Alba, also by the touch of the sepulchral earth: loosened from the waist down, when after receiving the sacraments he rubbed his legs with the sepulchral earth, obtained health: as also Cristóbal de Oleso, sick in the eyes, nay blind in one, on account of a film drawn over it: who, rubbing his eyes with the same earth, brought them forth clear and sound from the tomb on the third day. Antolinez, 57. Two women too, paralytic, by only invoking the Saint, merited health; and one, such from head to foot, maimed besides in one hand. Likewise a paralytic in one of his legs, and blind in one eye. There was cured besides for one man a paralysis of twelve years, and for another a contraction from a grave infirmity, then a little girl paralytic in one side for four years; and another very sick at the prayers of her mother. or by the staff which the Saint used. Juan Pacheco of Ciudad Rodrigo, given up by the physicians from a continuous fever and an abscess with a carbuncle, recovered at the touch of the Relics of Blessed John: and Inés González of Salamanca, brought to the last extremity by a carbuncle grown on her head, her mistress praying for her: who also merited to be freed from a false charge of murder inflicted on a certain maidservant of hers, of which she was accused. Many others too recovered from various infirmities, others were freed from various dangers; and especially women in labor, having invoked the Saint, touching his staff, by which both at Salamanca and at Toledo many miracles were wrought.

[60] Thus far Antolinez from chapter 46 to 58. Following him, Mariz rendered the same things in the same order, Certain things excerpted from Mariz. but in more words, varying nothing in substance, into Portuguese; but he added in part 2, chapter 43 and following, from Alfonso de Orozco, in which part he in his Augustinian Chronicle treats of the Blessed of the Order, and deduces the Life of John, the following few things. And first indeed in Orozco's own words in this manner: "It is few years ago that we saw healed in the same burial-place a man, whose leg an arrow striking had contracted; but his nerves were there stretched out, and having come out he began to run through the church

." The same likewise narrates that a blind boy, brought there by his mother, cried out eagerly: "I see, mother, the Priest, who recites the Gospel over me": and indeed he now clearly saw all things. Likewise of a certain sick young man he says, that he had been reduced to such a state, that, his speech now lost for many days, he was believed soon to die: who nevertheless, carried to the burial-place, recited as devoutly as he could the Angelic salutation; and this finished, was free from all disease.

CHAPTER VII.

Miracles, collected from the most recent writer, Antonio Jacob Valaurio.

[61] Receive moreover also from Valaurio, who reports not a few of the foregoing, those things which, not hitherto set forth by others, The Saint's tunic is tried by women in childbirth; he himself dug out from the old and new processes. Valaurio, bk. 3, ch. 2. He, beginning from the garments of John, says that thence by a pious theft very many have attempted to snatch something, to be kept for Relics, not without the effect of many miracles obtained by their means; then he adds, that at Salamanca scarcely any woman is brought into the danger of childbirth, who does not endeavor to receive from the Augustinian Convent the Tunic which the Saint used while alive; and that these childbirths are everywhere happy ones. Hence indeed, he says, to that holy garment such veneration has accrued, that when it is carried processionally through the city, and the sack in which it was once wrapped profits many. all through whom it passes bend their knees to it, praising God wonderful in his Saint: nor is there anyone who does not count it a great honor and happiness, even for a little time to have in his house the instrument of so many wonders. The very sack too, in which it was once kept, has the same power. Hence Juan López de Salamanca, after he had exchanged the now worn blue one for a new one of red silk; deposes that by its means not only he himself recovered health, but very many others too were freed from most grievous infirmities. Thus Valaurio, chapter 2 of book 3. He then narrates several other things in the six following chapters, from which I excerpt these.

[62] A five-year-old girl, daughter of Alonso Lorenzo, while her father was busy at agriculture, and her mother among the neighbor-women spun thread; A five-year-old girl, plunged into an icy pond, in the company of some girls of her own age was running about playing through a spacious garden, around the edge of a lightly frozen pool; but her step failing, fallen into it, she left nothing of herself to be seen except her hair sticking out above. Valaurio, bk. 3, ch. 8. At the cry of her companions the mother was roused, who was more than a hundred and forty paces distant thence, and implored the help of Blessed John of Sahagún, and then of Catalina Palmera her companion, fearing lest her mind, overwhelmed by grief, should be insufficient to bring aid. and drawn out thence as dead, Yet she ran up as quickly as she could, and together with Palmera, seizing a pole, they drew her to the edge of the pool and brought her out, grasped by the hair, now almost frozen, and giving no sign of life; and they hung her up by the feet, to draw out the water that had got in; nor did they then do anything else, than that, some cloths being thrown over her, they covered her as if dead. Meanwhile the afflicted mother did not cease to invoke the Blessed, vowing a Mass to be cared for in his honor. at the vow of the parents she revives after an hour. Soon too the father, summoned, was present, and both together, weeping, returned to look upon their dead little daughter. She, after an hour, in which she had thus lain, being uncovered, moved herself, saying, "Father." At the unhoped-for resuscitation of the daughter the tears were renewed, not now of grief, but of jubilation. Asked then, whether she had seen anything under the water; prevented by girlish modesty, she was then silent; but afterward she said to her little friend Catalina, that she had seen a man clothed in black with a crown on his head. But again questioned by her father; "Do you then think," she said, "that, submerged under the pond, I saw nothing? I saw indeed, I saw."

[63] Another is taken unharmed from the fire, While Alonso de Almansa and Manuela Robles, a married couple, were supping together, at some distance from the hearth; they saw their daughter fall prone into it. Their feet could not be so quick to run up, as their tongue to invoke the help of the Blessed, which too they obtained more quickly: for when the brother of one or the other parent had drawn her out by the hair, they saw her in no way injured in the face. In the town of Santervás a certain boy had entered a cold oven, for the sake of taking sleep. So when he had gone out of sight, and had fallen asleep; and a boy from a burning oven. it happened that the oven was heated by the household, who did not know; when the boy, surrounded by flame and waking up, testified by his cry that he was there. To whom the mother had nothing rather to do than to call upon the Blessed; and seizing one of their firebrands, whose head was already burning, with it she drew the boy to herself, having suffered nothing of harm from the flames either in his clothes or in his hair, much less in his flesh.

[64] A captive is freed from prison, Juan de Almanza had gravely offended the Prefect of the place, and by him, to whom power was favorable for doing justice to himself, had been given into prison, nor did he fear a light punishment; while intercessors, however gracious (among whom too was Doña Tomasía Borja, Countess of Gregal), availed nothing to soften the mind, obstinate for vengeance. So one of the nights, divinely inspired, he invoked the Blessed; and toward dawn saw the doors opened, and through them his adversary, the same who was also his judge, coming to meet him: who, having embraced him, bade him be secure of his liberty, and, taking him in a friendly way, invited him to dinner.

[65] Juan Poza, a Deacon, of Seville by origin, intending to fit himself for further degrees in the literary republic, and a sick man from a dangerous fever. and to seek the Baccalaureate, had come to Salamanca: but the course of his studies being interrupted by a fever, as fixed in duration as varied in its symptoms, he had no remaining hope of escaping. Seeing therefore that the art of Doctor Ruiz, the royal physician, availed nothing for his health, he looked to divine aid; and having invoked Blessed John, he vowed that, provided the fever did not return as usual on the following day, he would visit his church, with two candles to be lit there, and would daily recite the third part of the Rosary: and at once he felt himself heard by him, of whom, most devout while he lived to the Mother of God, the vow joined with the mother's honor could not but be most pleasing to God: and so he was forthwith healed.

[66] Admirable too is the event by which the Process of Salamanca was concluded; when, by leave of that delegated tribunal, from a book once written by P. Master Fr. Diego Vélez de Guevara, Seeking oil from the lamp of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, there was transcribed at Seville what follows. In the church of the Order stood two altars erected, one of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, the other of St. John of Sahagún; and before each burned a hanging lamp. Here happily entered a man, ill from a chronic disease, intending, by the persuasion of a certain devout person, to anoint himself with the oil of the former Saint, and taking from the lamp of St. John, which many had tried as a present remedy in desperate diseases. But that good man, not distinguishing well among the images and lamps, with hand extended took from that which burned before the altar of the latter, and anointed himself thence. Having returned home without the benefit he had hoped, he is helped while he strives in vain to reach the former. he is asked by a friend, how and whence he had taken the oil; and so he answered, so that from the signs he gave the error appeared. He is sent back therefore to take of the oil of the Saint of Tolentino: but while he extends his hand to its lamp, it is raised by itself so high, that he could in no way reach it. Yet in that very act he obtained health, God willing that glory to be left to Blessed John of Sahagún, as all judged.

[67] A lethal wound is healed, Inés González, when she had inflicted a mortal blow on the head of a certain maidservant of hers; led by penitence had recourse to the Saint, who suddenly healed her. A herdsman, fallen from a cart into a precipice, having invoked the same, was saved. Isabel Gómez, fallen from stairs, after a few days detected on her left breast a livid spot, no larger than one pustule: an incurable cancer; which, gradually widening together with a sharp pain, grew, and hardened, at last showed itself to be a cancer, and indeed so malignant, that no art of the physicians could relieve it, and it was exasperated by the very remedies. Valaurio, bk. 3, ch. 9. And as from moment to moment it crept wider, the plague was soon believed to be about to reach the heart, and to take her life. To death therefore she prepared herself: yet she still conceived some hope of life, to be preserved at the tomb of John. Thither therefore she had herself led, and put her head through the little window, and asked for help: then with the holy habit she had the injured part touched. The sacraments too of Confession and Communion she received, and at last is seized by a very brief sleep; whence awaking, and as if brought back from death to life, she knew to say nothing else, than, "O my holy John of St. Facundus! Is it then true, O my holy one? am I now sound?" She thought, namely, that she was dreaming: and touching the place of the mortal wound now sound, she went on to exclaim, "O my holy one! O my holy one!" and having gone out into the marketplace she made the miracle public, of which she had as many witnesses as the city had physicians.

[68] A man paralytic in the arm, A malignant fluxion descending on Manuel Carranza into the place of the right pulse, made his whole arm paralytic: and the remedies exasperating the evil the more, there was no hope of health except from a miracle. So when on the feast of St. Augustine he had entered his church, intending to implore the help of the Father and Son; he began through acts of contrition to dispose himself to Communion, because he was deaf and his usual Confessor had departed: but he more often repeated these words: "Although I am a great sinner and the most wretched of all, so much the greater will the glory of God shine forth." Under these words he saw, or seemed to himself to see, rays going forth from the eyes of the Saint, so vivid and bright, that they drew tears from his own: with which, repeating the acts of penitence, and approaching the altar, he strove to be admitted to the touch of the sacred habit, from which the packed multitude hindered him. But at last reaching it, for a quarter of an hour he wished to keep it applied to his arm. Then feeling himself wholly sound, and stretching out his arm and moving it wherever he wished, he turned to the Religious who stood by and said: "Should I be healed by touching that holy habit? Behold me sound!": the Saint's tunic being applied to him, and to those standing around, many of whom had been conscious of his infirmity, like one raving he proclaimed the miracle; which had cost him no more than a single sigh and a sense of a certain burning fervor in his arm. All these things happened on a Sunday, and on the following Monday, returning to his accustomed labor of baking with his wife, he kneaded no less than three pecks of wheat flour with that hand, which before he could not even move to his mouth, and to his chest only with difficulty.

[69] A hunchbacked and weak man Manuel de Castrillo, son of Úrsula de Medina, fallen from a ladder to a height of twenty palms, so dislocated his loins, that there proceeded from his backbone a certain hunchback, so enormous and troublesome, that he could form no step, except bent over and pressing his hands to his knees, with a staff besides applied. In curing him many surgeons, asked to spend their art on his cure, were unwilling to take the risk: yet at last one being found, he asked that the man be left to his discretion, as if already dead. But the mother refused, for the sake of so slight a hope, to commit her son to certain danger; and preferred to await help from the Saint. Whose tomb she promised to visit for nine days with her son. This was enough to obtain the grace; for scarcely had they entered the church, he receives the power to walk at the tomb: when the son, lifting his staff on high, began to run alone to the tomb, exclaiming: "Mother, Mother, now I feel no ill at all; now I am sound." The mother could scarcely believe her own eyes, astonished at the suddenness of so swift a grace: and she charged her son not to depart from that life-giving tomb before the novena had expired, to obtain full grace; for she would bring him food there, that he might be able to remain even when the church was closed. Scarcely had she departed thence about the fifth hour, when she saw her son coming behind her, at so hasty a run, as if he were fleeing a bull (the words of his deposition are these) praising in a loud voice the grace obtained.

[70] ordered by his mother to persevere at it, But because for the fullness of this it still remained for the hump to be made level, the mother wished the novena to be continued, and promised to pluck from her little poverty the alms necessary for caring for a Mass. The son therefore being brought back to the tomb, she asked that a Priest, according to the pious rite of that country, should recite over him the Gospel, "They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall be well." Afterward the boy, seen by many Religious there, was questioned about the faculty of moving himself restored to him, which was evident to the eye, and was sent back home. There, when his mother stripped him of his clothes, she found the hump no longer; he is freed even of the hump. and full of amazement, asking what had been done to him, or how the hump had been removed; she heard that, at the very moment of time in which the Gospel was being recited, he had felt as it were a chestnut burst; and at the same time the pain, which he was there suffering, removed; and only one bone left there, somewhat more raised than the others, as a trace of the past evil. Of which grace the mother and son moved the Bishop of Córdoba, Don Luis Fernández, as heralds, that, confirmed by many witnesses, he should authentically approve it.

[71] In the town of St. Facundus a Confraternity is established, The town of St. Facundus, which gave the Saint to the light, was unwilling to be last in honoring him: but under his invocation erected a numerous Confraternity in the church of the most holy Trinity: and because for celebrating the feast it was fitting to provide some quantity of wax for lighting the altar, the Prior of that Oratory, with Pedro de la Puente royal Scribe, and Luis Pasquera, went to the workshop of the wax-chandler to take sixteen candles, each of half a pound, in all eight pounds and four ounces, to the exactness of the balance, as is found noted in the book: and all were given whole to the pious confraternity-members. They burned the whole time of the sacred chant sung with music, he finds the wax spent on the feast in no way diminished, and of the other functions besides, until three quarters of each were consumed: but when there was returned to the seller what was left over, as is the custom; the candles being placed within the balance, that the loss might be estimated, there was found exactly the same weight, as before the candles had been placed on the altar. Yet the wax-chandler, wishing to test more certainly the case, which was esteemed miraculous; took another experiment, placing in the other scale the same number of whole half-pound candles; and the weight of these was seen not to exceed by even a single scruple the weight of those which seemed so notably diminished, the Saint willing to declare to the citizens, how pleasing to him were those first-fruits of devotion toward himself, and to compensate all the expense made on them. The case was signed by the hands of the royal Notaries, the wax-chandler asserting that it could not have happened without a miracle, that a candle, burning for however little a time, should not be diminished. The Confraternity, which on that happy day took its beginning under the small number of fourteen Members, has now reached seventy; who all attend the festivity, each carrying a torch of four pounds, and it itself is greatly multiplied. and placing on the altar a candle of one pound. It is notable too, that when the miracle was published, all ran to the wax-chandler, that they might obtain a little piece of that prodigious wax, to avail against tempests, or to be placed at the pillow in the hour of death.

[72] Under the ruin of a house When the house of Don Francisco de Prado-Saldaña collapsed in the middle of the night, when sleep holds all, there was rolled down from a great height among the rubble a poor little old woman, named Antonia de Vicente; and in her shift was found with difficulty under a little crypt, and burdened with a mass of stones, timbers, and mortar, as much as two thousand carts could scarcely carry off. There she remained for forty hours, without any breathing-hole of light or air; except that she found herself under a little crypt, an old woman deeply buried, not knowing how she was thus preserved there, since in every way she ought to have been suffocated there. The Magistrate of the place ran to help with many workmen: and after the labor of many hours, she who was thought not to be found except wholly crushed, came out having suffered no harm, except that she was marked here and there with a slight bruise. And she said that, at the very moment of the ruin, while the chamber was being shaken, is brought out unharmed after 40 hours. she had thought of nothing sooner than of invoking Blessed John; and when she had been rolled to the bottom, she had been impelled to betake herself to a certain vault: before reaching which, while freeing her arm from the ruins, she had vowed a Mass to be cared for, with an alms for feeding a lamp. Meanwhile the rest of the house threatened ruin, wherefore no one dared to approach nearer to bring the woman out; until the chief Prefect Diego de Robles, by prayers and promises, induced some workmen, to bring back to the light the good old woman devoted to the Saint from that as it were tomb.

[73] María Rodríguez Salano, the poor little widow of Manuel Caldera a barber, for eight months tormented by nephritic pains, had often run to the feet of her Confessor and Pastor, intending to prepare herself for death. But on a certain day, Tormented by an intolerable stone, afflicted with greater pains than ever, she leapt from her bed, and rushed out of her house. And as she ran about like one mad, it happened that she passed the natal house of the Saint, in the street called of the Arch: at the sight of which, remembering to implore so powerful a patronage, she felt herself urged as if to relieve nature. So when she had turned about, intending to return home, she is suddenly freed of it. at the first steps she took, shaken by a most vehement trembling, the stone was loosened and fell out, of the size of a goose egg: which removed, she straightway began to run about, and with mention of the grace done her to show it to all she met. Nor was it enough for her to insist with the Parish-priest and the Fathers of that place, that the case be entered into the public Acts; she always wished to keep the stone itself by her, which finally, when she died, came into the power of the aforesaid Fathers, witness of so singular a miracle.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Canonization earnestly sought: Beatification granted with Indulgences: an indult for the Office with Mass for the 12th of June.

[74] Devotion, excited by the fame of so great miracles, The tomb is visited by Queen Isabella, drew to visit the tomb not only men of common condition, but also persons of the first dignity and power, among whom was Queen Isabella, who for this cause with a notable retinue hastened from Zamora, where she was, to Salamanca. Mariz, bk. 2, ch. 6. The same did her grandson Charles V Emperor, and his son Philip II, first Monarch of all Spain, by Charles V, Philip II and III, and Queen Margaret. and left there monuments of his magnificence. Then Philip III, accompanied by his consort Margaret of Austria: who were received by the whole city with the most solemn possible array. And when they had visited the chapel of the Saint, the Fathers of that convent believed that they could not more worthily recognize so great an honor done them, than by giving them some little particle of the sacred body, who are given a particle of the sacred body. which they held most pleasing, as was fitting; and this they declared by promoting his Beatification, of which Antolinez begins to treat from Chapter 58; and to the very end of his book he thus pursues this argument.

[75] When the Augustinian Order had ordered information about the Life and Miracles of Blessed John of St. Facundus to be drawn up, For obtaining canonization by the effort of the holy man Juan de Sevilla, at the instance of the most Excellent Ladies, both Marías of Aragon, daughters of the Catholic King Ferdinand and Augustinian Nuns, the one Prioress, the other Subprioress, in the royal Convent of Madrigal; and when the Ordinary of the place had authentically declared several miracles, collected from the sworn depositions of about three hundred witnesses, the processes are formed, there was humbly supplicated to Alexander VI, the supreme Pontiff, for the Canonization. Antolinez, 58 etc. But the same Ferdinand, the Catholic King, seeing at the same time (as is in the Process) how notorious was the holiness of John, and manifest his miracles; added also his own supplication, and gave the same business to the Great Captain, exceedingly devout toward that Blessed man, and King Ferdinand insists, for whom too Juan de Sevilla had written that life, which is had digested in the form of letters. But however much he insisted, nothing could then be done according to their wish. Yet not therefore did the fervor of the Friars then languish, inflamed repeatedly by new miracles, but rather they had care that new informations be made before the Ordinary, about matters done after the first information.

[76] After these things nothing more was done, until again God inspired the General of the Order, that in his own name and that of the whole Religion, prostrate at the feet of Paul III, he should make before him a brief account of the life, death, and miracles. and again under Paul III, Charles V Then Cardinal Rudolph, Protector of the Order, and the Emperor Charles V, supplicated for the same matter. And the Pontiff, having heard such great wonders, assented to the just prayers, and decreed to proceed to canonization; and therefore ordered a Brief to be expedited, by which full power is committed to the Cardinal of Toledo and the Bishops of Salamanca and Bagnorea, both together and separately to each, in this manner: "To his beloved Son, John Priest Cardinal of St. John before the Latin Gate, called of Toledo, and to his venerable Brothers the Bishops of Salamanca and Bagnorea, and to any of them, Pope Paul III. Beloved Son and venerable Brothers, Greeting and Apostolic benediction. Since, as our beloved Brother Antonio, Deacon Cardinal of St. Mary in Via Lata, named Rudolph, Protector general of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, At the instance of the Cardinal Protector and General, has intimated to us, in his own name, and in that of our beloved Sons the Prior general and the Friars of the said Order; John of St. Facundus, formerly a Professed Friar of the same Order, who came as a young man to Salamanca for the sake of studies; and profiting much, both in letters and in virtues and good morals, was received into the major College of St. Bartholomew, with great solace and applause of all, into which none are admitted but learned men, of upright life and reputation, Old Christians, and clean of all suspicion of Jewish or Moorish contagion. Thence moreover, not aspiring to Episcopal or Archiepiscopal dignities, and the other royal offices to which the Collegians of the said College are wont to be promoted; but to the poverty and humility of the Religious life, in view of the signal merits of John, he took the habit of the Order of St. Augustine in his monastery at Salamanca: where, having professed, he lived with the best example, resplendent in holiness of life and in all virtues; and winning souls for God, walking outside the way of truth, by drawing them to him; and besides with many and most illustrious miracles in life and after death, as he shines forth to this day. Wherefore he is piously believed to be in heaven among the Saints, and that he ought to be entered in their Catalogue.

[77] Commissaries are named, Wherefore the same Cardinal Nicholas the Protector humbly asked, in his own name and that of the aforesaid, that lest the memory of the miracles perish in time, and the witnesses having knowledge of them die, before they have given testimony; and that John himself, his merits so requiring, may be inscribed in the Catalogue of Saints, and as such honored by the faithful, we should order Processes to be made concerning his life and miracles. Therefore, exceedingly desiring that the Lord be honored in his Saints, and believing it most difficult and as it were impossible, that the witnesses to be presented and received for the above-said should come personally to this Apostolic See; for drawing up the Processes wishing to provide for this as is fitting, and attentive to such humble prayers, we commit and command to you, in whose integrity, zeal of faith, and experience we much trust in the Lord, that you, or two, or one of you, by our authority, inquire and examine, with great diligence, the truth of the life, conduct, and reputation of the said John, and of all the miracles which shall seem to pertain to him; and that you receive the trustworthy informations which you shall find made upon these; and that you take up, for the verification of the aforesaid and of the informations, witnesses beyond all exception, as so grave a business requires; and before legal and faithful Notaries, chosen for this, examine carefully, faithfully, and diligently the informations and witnesses, writing their sayings by the same aforesaid Notaries, and to be transmitted to Rome, and send them sealed in public form to us or to the aforesaid See, under your letters signed with your seal, by a proper or other faithful courier. Notwithstanding any things to the contrary. Given at Rome at St. Mark's, under the Fisherman's Ring, on the 22nd day of August 1542, the eighth of our Pontificate. Blasius, Bishop of Foligno."

[78] This first step the Apostolic See made, toward the Canonization of Blessed John: from which the Bishop of Salamanca does it, and when that Brief had been delivered on the part of the Religion to the Bishop of Salamanca, he ordered by his Compulsories that the informations made before the Ordinary be produced: which, seen, examined, and approved, he inserted into a Process, made anew: and reducing it into a synopsis, he sent it closed and sealed to the Pontiff in proving form. And it indeed seemed to suffice, and therefore it was hoped that the Canonization would shortly follow: but on the contrary the matter was in no way advanced until the times of Pius V, with whom the Catholic King Philip II vehemently urged the conclusion of the cause. But that Pontiff dying about the year 1572, His Majesty interposed the same offices with his successor Gregory XIII; who, having seen the Account, declared the servant of God John Blessed; [and Gregory XIII declares him Blessed, indulgences being added for the 11th of June,] granting a plenary Indulgence for ten years, to all Christ's faithful, who should visit the altar and chapel of Blessed John on the 11th of June, the feast of St. Barnabas: nor did His Holiness proceed further, prevented by the intervention of death, in the year 1585.

[79] Not therefore did King Philip withdraw his hand from the business well begun: and so it went on being treated, but very slowly, on account of the languor of the Order in that part, appointing no one at Rome for it, and leaving all the care to the Castilian Province alone; but for this it was enough to entrust it to the Religious to be sent to Rome for the General Chapter; who, when it was finished, hastened to return to the province, leaving the work which they had not even begun. So all things stuck until the year 1597, which in the year 1597 Clement VIII, when King Philip, the same as above, made new instances with Clement VIII: who was content to have prolonged the former Indulgences for ten years, letters being expedited for the 30th of July in this form: "Pope Clement VIII, to all Christian faithful who shall see the present, greeting and Apostolic benediction. Desiring with pious love to increase the religion of the Faithful, and the salvation of souls, through the heavenly treasures of the Church; and hearing the humble supplications of our beloved son, Andrés of Córdoba our Chaplain and Auditor of the Apostolic Palace; to all the faithful of both sexes, truly penitent, confessed, and communicated, prolongs for ten years visiting the church of St. Augustine at Salamanca, and in it the altar of Blessed John of St. Facundus, any year on his feast from first Vespers until the setting of the sun of the following day, and praying there for the concord of Christian Princes, the extirpation of heresies, and the exaltation of holy Mother Church; we grant in the Lord an Indulgence and remission of all their sins; the present to last only ten years. We wish, however, that if from elsewhere we shall have established there any Indulgences, in perpetuity or only for a time, for the faithful visiting the said chapel on the same day, the said Indulgences be null. Done at Rome at St. Mark's, the 30th of July 1597, the fifth of our Pontificate. M. Vestrius Barbianus."

[80] then with instances renewed under Philip III, Then the Province of the Observants of Castile, considering how much the lack of a Procurator in the City had harmed the cause, sent thither with power Fr. Luis dos Rios, to treat it. But although even then for the same Philip III, with his grandmother the Empress, and the noble Church of Salamanca, and the University, and also the Colleges and Monasteries and the whole Augustinian Religion, insisted with Clement VIII; His Holiness nevertheless deferred to respond to the wishes of so great Kings and Princes, living and dead, and of other illustrious persons. But as they remitted nothing of their fervor in insisting, and the Procurator contributed no small diligence; the King ordered his Orator at Rome, the Duke of Sessa, he orders the former Process to be reviewed; to bring all his effort to the same. He, as heir of the estates of the Great Captain, so also of his zeal for the cause of John, vehemently urged His Holiness: nor did less Don Andrés de Córdoba, exceedingly devout to the Saint, from that time when he had been a Collegian at Salamanca in St. Bartholomew's, then Auditor of the Rota: who, having seen the Process, when he had found it standing as solidly as it had been for several years back produced at Rome in the cause of Saints to be canonized; did not cease to supplicate for this servant of God. By all these, or rather moved by the Holy Spirit, His Holiness sent back the said Process to Jerome Pamphilius and Juan García Millino, Auditors of the Rota, his Chaplains, that they might see whether all things were in proving form, and the witnesses legitimately and duly examined.

[81] And this was the second step of the Apostolic See toward the Canonization so long desired: at which, the Pontiff again halting, it pleased them to supplicate the same, and meanwhile to those supplicating that meanwhile he would grant the Religion the power of saying a solemn Mass of the Saint, on the day of his passing, and of reciting the divine Office, as of other Saints, in the monastery of St. Augustine at Salamanca, where his body lay. This supplication the Pontiff sent to be weighed by the Congregation of Rites, commanding the Cardinals Baronius and Antoniano the Congregation of Rites approves the Office and Mass to be granted: to make a report to the Congregation, the Process having been seen: which was as it were the third step. And they, after due diligence, added that such great and such certain wonders were proved of Blessed John of Sahagún, that His Holiness could securely proceed to his Canonization. And from that time Cardinal Antoniano remained most devout to the Saint, and wrote his Life in Latin in his most elegant style. Which report being seen and the Cardinals heard, the Congregation of Rites decreed that His Holiness could grant the grace requested, and declared this by a decree, issued on the 24th day of August 1600.

[82] Then again His Holiness commanded the aforesaid two Cardinals, Baronius and Antoniano, to review everything. Who, conformably to the former report, together with the Cardinal Dean of the Congregation, yet the Pope nonetheless delaying, reported that they persisted in the same opinion. This therefore was the fourth step, like the former not observed in the cause of St. Diego, canonized without such delay. Wherefore, since not even thus did the Pontiff seem to be moved, the Order offered a new petition: in which, the deeds done before this being related, it heaps up the reasons for which it would be fitting that meanwhile the Mass and Office be granted. First, because that grace redounds to the utility of the Church, that in it God may be more honored, through the memory of the virtues and merits of this his servant; for whom he works and has worked so many miracles, again the reasons are set forth for which this would be fitting, that their number cannot be reckoned: especially since that grace is sought for the city of Salamanca, which is the general seminary of the Spains, nay of all Christendom, that in it the talents of the studious may be excited by his example, to pursue virtue and letters. Secondly: because this holy See has often granted similar graces even to some whole Religion (as is established by many examples), but what is now sought is much less than that which His Holiness too has elsewhere granted: since it is sought for one single city, at least for the city of Salamanca, so greatly occupied in the service of Christendom; and for a single church, and that of the Friars of the Order of St. Augustine, so deserving of the Church and of the holy See itself. Thirdly: because the same holy See has elsewhere granted much greater graces, namely, that some Blessed should be inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, as too has been done very recently; whence now they are read throughout the whole Church among other canonized Saints. Fourthly, because since Gregory XIII of happy memory granted a plenary Indulgence to those visiting the chapel of the servant of God, and since His Holiness has confirmed it, it seems fitting that in his honor a Mass and Office too be said; especially since the city of Salamanca is so greatly affected toward this its Blessed; and runs in such number to his shrine, especially on the day of his happy passing. Finally, since now so often so great Kings, the Emperor and Empress, the City of Salamanca, the College of St. Bartholomew, and the Religion of St. Augustine have supplicated this holy See, it is fitting that His Holiness, using his accustomed kindness, should console them in this part.

[83] Moved by these, he issues a Decree, This fifth step, which likewise was not applied in the cause of the servant of God Giles (Aegidius), at last drew forth the decree of Beatification, of the following tenor: "Pope Clement VIII, for the perpetual memory of the matter. Whatever things pertain to the divine worship, and to the increase of the piety and devotion of pious Christians toward blessed men; those we gladly grant, or otherwise provide, as we discern it expedient in the Lord. Now after the King Ferdinand the Catholic of bright memory had supplicated Pope Alexander VI of happy recollection; and, following the example of the same Ferdinand, Charles the Fifth of that name, Pope Paul III; and then Philip the Second, Catholic King of the Spains, Pius V, Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, Roman Pontiffs our Predecessors; and at last the same Philip the Second, Us, that Blessed John of St. Facundus, of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, in which, the instances of the Kings of Spain for Canonization being related, illustrious in the kingdoms of Spain for zeal of faith, holiness of life, and miracles, be enrolled in the number of the Saints; our most dear son in Christ Philip the Third, Catholic King of the Spains, not only heir of the kingdoms, but especially of the paternal virtues and piety, desiring the business of this Canonization to be brought to the wished-for end, has often, through our beloved son, the noble man Antonio de Cardona and Córdoba, Duke of Sessa, his Orator with Us and the Apostolic See; and our beloved sons the Major College, and the Collegians and Chaplains and Persons, called of St. Bartholomew of the city of Salamanca; also of the College of St. Bartholomew from whose bosom, and from the number of which Collegians and Chaplains, the said Blessed John was while he lived; and also through our beloved son Master Andrés Fernández de Córdoba, our Chaplain and Auditor of causes of the sacred Apostolic Palace, and Colleague of that College; and also our beloved sons the Prior and Friars of the Province of Castile of the same Order, through our beloved son Fr. Luis de los Ríos, Professor of the same Order, and their Procurator existing in the Roman Curia; have very lately humbly asked of us, and of the Augustinian Order, that to this cause, now long begun under so many Roman Pontiffs our predecessors, we would at length at some time impose an end.

[84] And We, using in this most grave deliberation mature counsel (as is fitting), before we establish anything in the premises, ordered the Process upon the purity of life, the validity of the processes being then ascertained and the truth of the miracles of the same Blessed John, made from the year 1488 in the city of Salamanca; and also the witnesses upon his life and miracles, namely in the year 1525, and then in 1542 several received, first by our beloved sons the Masters Jerome Pamphilius and Juan García Millino, our Chaplains and Auditors of causes of our sacred Palace, to be diligently reviewed and examined; and having received from the same Jerome and Juan García their reports, that the said Process had been drawn up in proving form, and the witnesses duly and rightly examined, we have ascertained. By the vote and wisdom of our venerable Brothers the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, deputed over the sacred Rites, to whom we committed this whole business to be examined; we have judged that satisfaction should in some part be given to the pious prayers of the same King Philip, and to the devotion of the Major College of St. Bartholomew and of its Colleagues, Chaplains, and Persons; and also of the Prior and Friars of the aforesaid Convent of St. Augustine.

[85] Inclined therefore to the supplications offered in their name upon this, he grants for the churches of St. Augustine to the same Prior and Friars of the Convent of St. Augustine of Salamanca, and also to the Provincial and Friars of the same Order of the said city of Salamanca, in the church in which the said Major College, or the Collegians and Chaplains and Persons called of St. Bartholomew, every year on the day of the death of Blessed John, are wont to assemble together with the said Friars, and in which likewise the body of the said Blessed John rests, and is preserved with great veneration and devotion of the people, that the Office and Mass, from the Common of one Confessor not a Pontiff, of the said Blessed John, according to the Rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal, the Mass and Office to be celebrated the 12th of June in the year 1601. namely on the twelfth day of the month of June (to which day, although Blessed John himself fell asleep in the Lord on the eleventh day of the same month, on account of the feast of St. Barnabas the Apostle, which falls on the same eleventh day of June, we have judged this Office to be transferred) together with the said Collegians, Chaplains, and Persons of the said College, may be freely and lawfully celebrated; by Apostolic Authority, by the tenor of the present, we grant and indulge. Notwithstanding etc. Given at Rome at St. Peter's under the Fisherman's Ring, the 29th day of June, 1601, the tenth year of our Pontificate."

CHAPTER IX.

The University of Salamanca takes up a new feast; the City takes up John as Patron by a solemn vow.

[86] Great jubilation that grace brought to the whole Religion: and on the arrival of the Brief itself, The Augustinians of Salamanca about to keep the new feast more solemnly the monastery of St. Augustine, the matter being communicated with the City, the Church, the University, and the College of St. Bartholomew, decreed that the feast should be kept most solemnly the coming year. There was then visiting the University the Licentiate Juan Álvarez de Caldas, at present (says Antolinez) Bishop of Oviedo. Desiring therefore the Convent of St. Augustine to celebrate the aforesaid day as festively as possible, and to have the University concurring with them in it, whose son the Saint had once been; they dealt with the aforesaid Visitor, that he should persuade so singular a day to be received among the feasts of the University. To whom, since the proposal seemed just, he himself set it forth to the University, in full (as they say) cloister in this form: "The College of St. Augustine desires that the day of Blessed John of St. Facundus be a feast of the University, that it may be able to run to celebrate it. The cause is most just. Let the University hear the College of St. Augustine, They solicit the University to decree it a feast for themselves, and see what it judges." Then Master Fr. Augustín Antolinez, having entered, spoke thus, in the name of his College. "Your College of St. Augustine our Father, among the other graces which it daily receives from your hand, desires also this most singular one, which the Lord Reformer has proposed: for from a University so distinguished it is fitting to ask so distinguished a grace.

[87] But although that reason suffices to persuade your Lordships to command our desire to be carried into effect, which seems to be from God; since it intends the honor of his Saint; yet I will bring forward into the midst some others (for to produce all would be impossible), taking care not to be troublesome to you, whom for so many years I have intended to serve. But among these not the least is, that Our Most Holy Lord Clement VIII has indulged that the Mass of the Saint of Sahagún be celebrated in the College of St. Augustine, because the Saint was its son, at the instance of your Lordships; which standing, as it altogether stands, the same reason teaches, that the University celebrate his feast with full joy, and be wholly occupied in it, taking a holiday from the ordinary labors of studies. Especially because the Saint himself was a son of the University, and Graduated in it, and a Collegian in the College of St. Bartholomew, and Professor of the first chair in sacred Scripture, as Marieta the Dominican says, in the History of the Spanish Saints. For what mother does not wish well to her son, and not promote his honor? Why then should not the University, whom it numbers among its sons, celebrate a feast for him too, even with some expense of its own? What more? that such honor is to redound to the honor, and that no small honor, of the University itself, since the honor of sons redounds to fathers, and here that of the Poet has place: 'For the honor of one was a public cause.'

[88] But if the University keeps the feasts of many Saints, who, though great, yet are not its own; how much more just is it that it keep that of this man, and the first honored with that title. who is wholly its own? or for this reason at least, that he first from it merited this honor by the title of holiness: for what is rare, that too is wont to be dear: and he who first brings something good into a city, though small, is by right preferred to the rest in reward. I conclude therefore that it is fitting, that this University, which has only this one Saint, take up his feast, the University which ought to wish that it be done throughout all Spain, and to go before in this by its example; lest otherwise it be said of them, what we read was reproached to the Athenians: 'The people of Salamanca know what things are honorable, but they do them not.'" These things said, Antolinez, with the Masters of his Order, departed the cloister, as is the custom of those supplicating, and of those who have no vote in their own cause. And first Commissaries were appointed, Concerning which a decree was made the 24th of May 1602, who, the Brief seen and the causes weighed, should report their opinion to the University: which heard in full assembly on the 24th day of May 1602, it decreed that thereafter the feast of Blessed John of St. Facundus should be observed, as a feast of the School (as they call it).

[89] Then the zeal of the Augustinians, considering how devout to its Saint the city of Salamanca is, and how great benefits it had received through him living and dead; The same is asked of the City, the 29th of May: resolved to ask of it, that it too should order that same day to be a feast, by receiving the Saint as its Patron, and assisting at his chapel in a body. Antolinez, 60. A public consistory therefore being asked and obtained on Tuesday morning, which is counted the 29th of May 1602, Fr. Antolinez in the name of his Convent thus addressed the City. "After the kissing of hands, on the part of your House of St. Augustine, I come to communicate the desire of all your Chaplains in it, ever since Our Most Holy Lord Clement VIII permitted the Office and Mass to be celebrated of Blessed John of Sahagún; namely, that his feast become a feast of the City, and that he be received as Patron, and that the Magistracy come in a body to honor it. But although the reasons which can urge this be known to you, and each suffice for persuasion, yet I will set forth some.

[90] because on the day of his death he gave the City the longed-for rains. Rewards are appointed for virtue, lest it perish; punishments for vices, lest they grow. By these well-ordered Republics are governed, however barbarous; nor is anything more usual with them, than to erect statues to citizens of signal merit. What then will Salamanca do for that Saint, whom alone it has? and whose merits even the boys, nay the stones of the public ways, proclaim? Let there come to mind at least that last thing, which, departing this life, he conferred on the city, laboring under a scarcity of waters. Since therefore the day of his death was so happy for it, it is just that it pursue the same with singular worship yearly. living, he freed it from discord, The city of Toledo adopted St. Augustine our Father as its Patron, because he drove an infinite multitude of locusts from its borders: and shall not Salamanca do as much for the Saint of Sahagún, who extinguished discord more harmful than locusts, through which slaughters were perpetrated even in the very churches, Henry III in vain bringing his authority to restrain the flames of hatreds? On account of one man lame from birth, he illustrated it with miracles: whom Paul raised up at Lystra, the citizens prepared sacrifice and victims to him and Barnabas as to gods; and shall John not be venerated as Patron, where he raised up so many lame and contracted, gave speech to so many mute, sight to the blind, health to the sick, life to the dead? Let Toledo, Seville, and Granada have hitherto had their Saints; let not Salamanca have one,

Seville, and Granada, not without some disgrace; but now let it not fail to rejoice, when he has been raised up, when it hears read in the History of the Saints: 'At Salamanca in Spain, in the monastery of Divine Augustine, the Deposition of Blessed John of Sahagún'?"

[91] The City answered cheerfully to these things, that the petition seemed just. It being then brought into council on Wednesday, the 5th of June of the aforesaid year, and on the 5th of June a decree is established by the common consent of all it declared: That the obligations were so notorious by which it was bound to expend devout service and honor on the glorious Saint and Blessed Fr. John of Sahagún, on account of his great holiness, and the very many graces which God did and does daily in view of him; and also because in it he lived, dwelt, taught by example and word, performed many wonders, to the glory of God and the public utility, and left it the deposit of his body; concerning the Saint to be venerated as Patron; so that it was most just that all should be done which Master Antolinez had requested. It decreed therefore that the Blessed be taken up as Patron and special Advocate of the City; and that thenceforth he be held as such, and that the City bind itself by a public and perpetual vow, to celebrate his feast with the accustomed solemnity; so that from now on his feast be ordered to be kept by the people on a holiday, that they may be able more freely to attend the solemnity; commanding the Lords Pedro de Zúñiga and Gonzalo Yáñez de Ovalle, to go to the monastery of St. Augustine, and there to make the solemn vow, which the Lord Provisors should immediately confirm: for all which and the things thereafter to be done a commission in form was given them.

[92] And these, for the sake of the commission, went to Don Fernando de Fonseca and Toledo, Dean and Canon of the holy Cathedral church, and Provisor of the diocese for the Chapter during the vacancy of the See, and reported to him the council's decision, and he to the Chapter: which approving it, the aforesaid Knights came, on the 8th of June, with much nobility accompanying, and with the consent of the Chapter during the vacancy of the See, to the church of St. Augustine. There, Mass being sung in the chapel of the Saint, prostrate on their knees at the foot of the altar, and with their right hands placed upon the Missal, which Fr. Antonio Monte, Prior of the Convent, who had also celebrated the Mass, held, they swore in this manner: "Before Gregorio de la Puente, royal and public Scribe, of the number of the City, and the witnesses undersigned, and the rest of the crowd present; Gonzalo Yáñez de Ovalle de Herrera, Knight of the Habit of St. James of the swords, the two Rectors of the City, sworn in the common name, Lord of the town of Valverde; and Don Pedro de Zúñiga Cabeza-de-vaca, Knight of the same Habit, and Commander of Almendralejo, Lord of the towns of Flores and Cisla, Rectors of the city of Salamanca, in the name of its Chapter, Justice, and Government, by special commission for the undersigned matters, given them in the ordinary Consistory, on the 5th of the present June, of which we ask the faith of the present scribe, and having at once received it we say, they bind it to this, that because this City on the said day received as Patron, Protector, and special Advocate the blessed and glorious Saint, John of St. Facundus, formerly a Collegian of the distinguished Major College of St. Bartholomew of this city, and a Religious of the Augustinian Order; considering the many and great benefits, which this City received through his intercession in life and after death, and many other reasons, moving to this and expressed in the book of consultations of the said Consistory." Antolinez, 61.

[93] It decreed also that the day of his feast be held a holiday, the 12th of the month of June, and the feast to be held of precept by vow, by a vow to bind in perpetuity: and gave us power and commission in form to make the aforesaid solemn vow in this monastery of St. Augustine and this chapel, before the altar of that glorious Saint, where his body is; "accepting, as we accept, the said power and commission; and wishing to use it, by executing and fulfilling the thing committed; We promise and swear by God our Lord, and St. Mary his blessed Mother, and by the holy four Gospels and the Cross, which they publicly utter, on which we corporally place our right hands, that from this present day in the future, as long as the world shall stand, always and perpetually, we will hold and keep, and this city of Salamanca will hold and keep, the twelfth day of June as a feast and holiday, on which Our Most Holy Lord Pope Clement VIII, by his special Brief, ordered his feast to be celebrated in the said monastery; and we will observe it as the others which holy Mother Church orders to be observed; abstaining from all judicial acts, and the ordinary labors of working days. And under the said oath we promise, that we will be present, and they ask it to be confirmed by the Lord Provisor: and that the City, Justice, and Government will be present, in each year in which they shall live, always and perpetually in this monastery, at first Vespers, the High Mass, the Sermon, and the Procession of the said festivity. And we ask and beg the Lord Fernando de Fonseca and Toledo, Dean … here present, that he approve and confirm the said vow and oath by the interposition of his authority and judicial decree; and the persons present, that they be willing to be witnesses. Don Pedro de Zúñiga. Gonzalo Yáñez de Ovalle de Herrera. Done before me Gregorio de la Puente."

[94] Then the said Lord Fernando de Fonseca and Toledo, Dean and Canon of the said holy Church, Provisor in the said city and bishopric, for the Lords Dean and Chapter of the said Episcopal church, the See being vacant by the death of Don Pedro Junco de Posada of good memory, late Bishop of Salamanca, before me Luis Pérez de Ulloa, of the number of the seven Notaries of the said Cathedral church and Episcopal Audience of the said city, which he here does, and the undersigned witnesses, said, that by the way and form most likely to be valid he approved and approves, as Provisor and ordinary Judge of this City, the oath made by the aforesaid Lords … in the name of the said city; and he commanded and commands, that the said city observe and fulfill it, as is contained therein: and as far as by law he can, to all and singular he interposes his authority.

[95] And the said P. Fr. Antonio Monte, Prior of the said Monastery and Consultor of the Holy Office; and the Licentiate Don Jerónimo de Otálora, Rector of the said distinguished College of St. Bartholomew, asked testimony of the acts, which the said Lord Provisor ordered to be given them in authentic form, in the presence and testimony of, and gives testimony of the Acts, before many witnesses. besides the countless crowd assisting at the said vow, the Lords Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, elected Bishop of Cádiz; Diego de Olarte Maldonado, Archdeacon of Ledesma and Canon of the said Church of Salamanca; Doctor Roque de Vergas, Archdeacon of Monleón and Doctoral Canon in the said Church, and Professor of Canons in this University; Master Juan Alfonso Curiel, evening Professor of Theology and Canon of the said church; Pedro Rodríguez Nieto y Fonseca, Lord of Cubo; Juan Arias Maldonado, Lord of Materiales; Pedro de Zúñiga Palomeque; Fr. Plácido Pacheco, Abbot of St. Vincent's; Master Fr. Pedro de Ledesma, Prior of St. Stephen's and Professor of St. Thomas; Fr. Luis de Miranda, Guardian of St. Francis's, Consultor of the Holy Office; P. Alfonso Ferrario, Rector of the Society of Jesus; Doctor Diego Espinosa de Cáceres, Professor of the first chair of Canons; Doctor Juan de León, evening Professor of Laws; Doctor Gabriel Henríquez, Professor of the first chair of Laws; the Licentiate Mexía, Rector of the Major College of Cuenca; Master Aguayo, Professor of property of languages in this University, and Canon of the church of Ciudad Rodrigo, Collegian of the Major College of the Archbishop of Toledo in the said city. Don Fernando de Fonseca. Done before me Luis Pérez de Ulloa, in the presence of Gregorio de la Puente.

[96] The decree is published throughout the whole territory. With these things was finished one of the more solemn and more religious acts which Salamanca ever saw, adding to the devotion many tears of those standing around, overflowing with great joy, seeing how God honors his servants on earth. But that the vow made might come to the notice of all, it ordered the feast to be kept universally to be published by the herald's voice even throughout its whole territory; likewise, that on the Vigil of that feast each of the citizens should set lights at their windows, in sign of gladness, on account of the beatification of their holy John, and the license for the Office and Mass to be said; wherefore that night resounded with all festivity with bells, and shone with fires.

[97] While these things were being done, Ana de Barrientos, wife of Francisco de Contreras, had her face and hands defiled by a certain kind of cancer, Suffering cancer in hands and face, so that the flesh was cut away from them in parts, no remedy profiting through the three years in which she endured that fierce evil, but rather whatever was applied hindering, so that without great torment she could not spread out her hands, or use them in any way. Meanwhile the festive ringing is heard: she asks the cause; and raising her hands to heaven, she begins to implore the help of the Saint with tears. Her mother encouraged her to confidence, vowing herself some Masses to be cared for in the chapel of the Saint, if her daughter were healed, to which too she would bring two wax hands. These done, the sick woman began to be at rest, and slept that whole night until morning; which for a month had not happened to her, but that she interrupted her own and her mother's rest with wailings. Hence both being brought to new hope, the mother did not delay, but at the fifth hour of morning betook herself to the chapel, to ask help, on the very day of the new feast she is healed. on the title that her daughter was the granddaughter of the grandmother, once most devout to him. On the same day toward evening Ana closed her hands, now for three months rigid: and on the following Thursday, rising from her bed, with her own hands took food: and on Friday, she even put on her clothes herself, washed herself with soap, and sat down to do work. And although, having left Salamanca, she set out for the Indies; yet not even there forgetting her benefactor, she sent thence a silver lamp, to be hung in his chapel: but before she departed, she confirmed under oath the grace received, together with her husband, mother, maidservant, and Doctor Ruiz, Professor of medicine in the University of Salamanca: and she celebrated the feast day of the Saint with the greatest joy and devotion.

CHAPTER X.

The Relics translated to the town of St. Facundus: the feast taken up by vow as of a Patron.

[98] The City of Salamanca then wished to share its joys with the town and monastery of St. Facundus, to which it attributed this its happiness. Antolinez, 62. It therefore sent them a double copy of the Pontifical Brief, The Relics asked for by the people of Sahagún, and exhorted them, that by its example the people of Sahagún should choose the same Saint as Patron. More was not necessary for those, to whom the holiness of their son and alumnus, and the grace of miracles, had long been known. Therefore in thanksgiving a most solemn feast was proclaimed, and all the neighbors invited to it. But since, both the town and the monastery believed themselves to have some right in the Relics of him who had been born, educated, and imbued with his first letters among them; the Abbot, who then was Fr. Mauro Otel, a religious and grave man, sent two of his Monks to the monastery of St. Augustine at Salamanca, and to the Provincial of the Order, to ask for some of the Relics. And when he did the same a second time, the Magistracy of the town added also its own orator, alleging its own rights too. But the Abbot, to the titles previously alleged, added, that the major chapel of his church was the repository of so many illustrious men, Infantes, Princes, and Queens, four of whom surrounded the tomb of King Alfonso, placed in the middle of that chapel.

[99] It seemed to all the Religious that what was requested was consonant with equity. they are brought to them by Agustín Antolinez the Provincial, And so, the feasts being finished in the month of October, Fr. Agustín Antolinez, writer of this History, for the time being Provincial of his Order, together with many of his Religious, whom he wished to have as witnesses, set himself on the way; and half a league from the town, in a certain Priory, he deposited the sacred pledge, above the tabernacle of the Venerable Eucharist, which the Saint himself had so often and so devoutly received; six Religious being left there for its guard. But on the next day, after a sermon delivered in the monastery of Sahagún to a most crowded assembly by P. Vanegas the Benedictine, the Provincial proceeded, with the Augustinians and some Benedictines, to the Priory, where he had deposited the Relics; carrying there with him the silver repository of the venerable Sacrament, in which to place them; and they are received by the Benedictines; for they could find nothing more worthy and more to the purpose; thinking it by no means unfitting, if in such an act the Lord should yield place to his servant, in what was dedicated to his own body. Moreover, the Relic brought to Sahagún they deposited in the major chapel of the monastery of St. Francis, above a silver bier, placed on an altar most beautifully adorned and illuminated; certain Religious of both Orders remaining there for guard.

[100] After the appointed hour of the procession to be set in motion was at hand, who with a solemn procession there were present also the crosses and banners of the whole town, and many precious Relics of the Saints, to meet their old guest. There went moreover three Benedictine Abbots, clad in Pontificals; and many Clerics, and more than two hundred and fifty Religious of various Orders: for to the feast there came also the Dominicans of Triana, and the Discalced Franciscans of Grajal, and a more numerous crowd of people than seemed could be gathered. Who, when they had come to the aforesaid monastery of St. Francis, and in the chapel where the Relics stood had sung some odes; the Relics were lifted onto the shoulders of all the Orders successively: for whose receiving along the way, at suitable intervals, beautiful altars were erected, while poems were sung, composed in the Saint's honor: which was done especially before the door of that house in which the Saint had been born; where a congratulatory poem on the present occasion was recited. And although night had come on, before the procession reached the monastery; bring them into the town, yet light was not lacking on the whole way, nay nor in the whole town; since everywhere candles shone at the windows, and festive fires through the streets and fireworks flying through all the air.

[101] to be kept in two churches. Then the Provincial Antolinez, the Relics being deposited upon an altar, which stood erected in the middle of the major chapel, before Pedro de la Puente the scribe and witnesses, consigned them to the Abbot to be placed in that church, which was reckoned the mother-church of the whole town, on this condition, that they could not be alienated either whole or in part. Then by the same rite he handed over to the town itself, and to Pedro de Saldaña, Prefect of the place, holding its place, another particle; to serve for the water to be blessed in the name of the Saint, for the solace of the sick, and to be deposited in the Parish of the Holy Trinity, in which they say he was baptized: whither it was soon carried processionally, and with great festivity. On the following day, the 14th of October, after a solemn Mass, and a sermon delivered by Fr. Juan Castro, Augustinian Prior of the monastery of Valladolid, the whole order Ecclesiastical and Secular proceeded, to utter a vow in the public name to its new Patron, in this form which follows.

[102] Before them the Rectors of the place, "We, the Licentiate Fernando Núñez, Provisor of the town of St. Facundus and its Abbey, and Rector of the Parish of St. Thyrsus; and the Licentiate Fernando de Escobar, Rector of the Parish of the Holy Trinity and Commissary of the Holy Office; and also the Licentiate Antonio de Saldaña, Rector of the Parish of St. Lawrence and Abbot of the Confraternities of Sahagún; likewise Lord Sancho de Tobar, Lord of Villamartín, Bocahorgan, Tierra-de-la-reina, and the towns of Caminay, Horcadas, Curandis, and Lianaxi: and Lord Pedro de Vozmediano, Lord of the towns of Calzadilla, vow the feast to be a holiday every year, Hermanillas, and Bostico, citizens and Rectors of the town of Sahagún; both in our own name and in that of the ecclesiastical and secular estate, by the power given us for the undersigned, and representing the whole Town, do vow, promise, and swear, by our God and St. Mary his blessed Mother, and by the words of the holy four Gospels, and the holy Cross, on which we corporally place our right hands; that henceforth in the future, until the end of the world, always and continually the said Clergy, Town, and Abbey will hold and keep, as a feast commonly to be kept holiday, every year the twelfth day of June, the day after St. Barnabas; which Our Most Holy Lord Pope Clement VIII, by his special Brief of Beatification, defined, by celebrating the feast of Blessed John of St. Facundus: and that feast will be observed after the manner of the other feasts defined by the Church, ceasing from all judicial acts, and the ordinary labors of the hands.

[103] Under the same vow and oath we also promise, to come in a body every year to the aforesaid monastery, fasting on its Vigil, for first Vespers, and on the 12th of June with a general Procession, and to assist at the High Mass and Sermon and Procession of the said festivity: and likewise to fast on the Pre-vigil of Blessed John of Sahagún, like the other Vigils prescribed by the Church, because on the day immediately preceding his feast is held the feast of St. Barnabas: but if that Pre-vigil should chance to fall in the Paschal time, only abstinence from meats will be kept. And from now we take up and swear to hold that Saint as Patron. as Patron, Refuge, Protector, and special Intercessor or Advocate, together with the holy Martyrs Facundus and Primitivus, whom for many years the Town and Abbey have held as such. And all three we humbly beg, that they be willing to intercede for this Town, before the divine Majesty of Our Lord Jesus Christ; and protect and defend us in our necessities. But for the perpetuity, observance, and firmness of the aforesaid vow of promise and oath, which we make in the name of the said Town, and of the ecclesiastical and secular estate, we ask the said Lord Abbot, present at all the foregoing, as Prelate of this Abbey, that he approve, ratify, and confirm the aforesaid, and interpose for them, for perpetual validity, his authority and judicial decree."

[104] The Abbot of St. Facundus ratifying all, And soon the said Father Abbot, the things related above being seen and heard, said, that in the best form and manner he could, he approved and approves, consented and consents, and held it as good, firm, sufficient, and valid, from now in perpetuity, the vow, promise, and oath, made in his presence, on the part of the ecclesiastical Estate of this Town and Abbey, and of the Council and Government of the said Town: and because it is so just and laudable, from now he ratifies and confirms it, that it be inviolably and in perpetuity observed all the days of the world, and fulfilled without alteration, change, or other sense than is understood today. And for the validation of all, and subscribing with them, insofar as is necessary, he interposed his authority and judicial decree; and signed with his own hand; and with him signed, the aforesaid Licentiates Fernando Núñez, Fernando de Escobar, and Antonio de Saldaña; likewise the Lords Sancho de Tobar and Pedro de Vozmediano; in the presence, as witnesses, of the Fathers Fr. Luperçio López, Abbot of St. Claudius of León; Fr. Alfonso de Barrantes, Abbot of St. William of Carrión; Master Fr. Diego Venegas, Preacher and formerly Abbot of León; Fr. Fernando de Saravia, and Fr. Bernardino de Navarra, Visitors of the Congregation of St. Benedict, and many other Religious of the same Order; and also Master Fr. Agustín Antolinez, Professor of Theology in the University of Salamanca, and Provincial of the Province of Castile of the Order of St. Augustine; Fr. Antonio Monte, Prior of St. Augustine of Salamanca; Fr. Juan de Castro, Prior of St. Augustine of Valladolid, before witnesses of the first rank, Religious, Fr. Pedro Ruiz, Rector of the College of St. Gabriel of Valladolid; Fr. Fernando de Rojas, Rector of the College of the Incarnation of Madrid; Fr. Luis Ortiz, Prior of St. Augustine of Madrigal; Fr. Diego Guevara, Prior of St. Augustine of Bilbao; Fr. Gaspar Melo, Prior of St. Augustine of Mansilla; and many other Religious of the Augustinian Order.

[105] Likewise Don Rodrigo de Mendoza, uncle of the Admiral of Castile, ecclesiastics, Archdeacon of Madrid in the church of Toledo; Don Diego de Vega and Lorenzana, Prior of St. Isidore of León; Master Luis Hernández Nieto, Lector of Theology in the College of Triana of the Order of St. Dominic; Fr. Fernando de Miranda, Master of Students of the said College; Fr. Tomás Fernández, Prior of the monastery of Villada, of the Order of St. Dominic; Fr. Antonio Aguado, Prior of the monastery of Cisneros of the said Order; Fr. Ambrosio Carrillo, Preacher of the monastery of Espina, of the Order of St. Bernard; Fr. Ángel Pastor, Prior of Sandoval of the same Order; Fr. Baltasar García, Preacher at St. Francis's of Sahagún; Fr. Benito de Nájera, and Fr. Francisco de Laeso, Discalced of St. Francis of Grajal; Fr. Jerónimo de Arciniega, of the Premonstratensian Order; the Licentiate Juan Pantoja, Rector of St. Martin's of Sahagún; Juan Fernández, Rector of St. James's there; Gregorio de Comillas, Rector of St. Peter's there; Pedro Ramírez, Rector of Codornillos; Marcos Cabeza, Rector of Palaciol; Santiago de Xuara, Rector of Villapeceñil; Diego Álvarez, Rector of Calzada; the Licentiate Pedro Fernández, Rector of Loma; Francisco Gutiérrez, Fernando de Escobar, Diego Alfonso, Clerics; Don Manuel Enrique de Cisneros, Lord of Muzuelas, Lieutenant of the chief Huntsman of His Majesty; Don Francisco de Prado, and laymen. Governor of Aranjuez for the King our Lord; Pedro Álvarez de Vega, son of Juan de Vega, Count of Grajal; Antonio Vaca de Otel, and the Licentiate Robles a Porta, natives of Cisneros, and very many others, and present at the Act in the said monastery. Of which we, present at all, make faith, the scribes … Jerónimo de Ceinos, and Pedro a Ponte.

[106] The festivity was begun that very evening, and for some days the Relic stood uncovered, conspicuous to all: The feast is continued through the octave. but the Octave being passed, they enclosed it in the silver chest of the most holy Sacrament, deposited for the time being in another chest; until the General of the Order came to visit the monastery: to whom, since it seemed that the Most Holy should be put back in its place, they put the Relic in another. And at that time, in which the silver chest was opened, the heavenly fragrance proceeding thence was an admiration to all: who, if they had known how sweetly his Relics smell in their tomb, and the very earth adhering to them; Fallen from a ladder he is preserved unharmed, would not have held this for a new thing. And here Antolinez ends Chapter 62: to which it may be added from Valaurio, that when P. Bartolomé de Vera had climbed certain very high ladders, intending to hang up some cloth belonging to the rest of the apparatus, and through the carelessness of him who ought to have held them, had fallen headlong to the ground, where he lay without motion and breath like a dead man; with many Monks running together with their Abbot, he was suddenly found unharmed; and set back on his feet, and thence prostrated to venerate the Relics.

[107] Contradicting the establishment of the feast at Dorvilium, The place of Dorvilium too, whose Curate title the boy John had held, wished, in imitation of the people of Salamanca and Sahagún, by the same rite to establish the feast among them: but when this was being done, there was found a farmer, who either from defect of faith, or through excess of avarice, disturbed such a plan, crying out, "Why so many feasts? The whole year is consumed in them, is drowned in the river. when all our sweat does not suffice to earn our living." This said, he directed his cart into the field: but slipping into the river Cea, notably swollen, he was drowned with his oxen. He who affirmed this in the Process, suppressed the man's name, lest the divine vengeance, inflicted on one of his kindred, should be a shame to any of his relatives.

CHAPTER XI.

New supplications for the Canonization, and for the Office meanwhile to be extended to the whole Order and the kingdom of Castile.

[108] The Augustinian Religion, considering the enormous increase of public devotion through the Beatification of its John of St. Facundus, For the extension of the Office sent back to Rome Fr. Luis Ruiz, instructed with the power necessary for pursuing the Canonization; and with the commission, that meanwhile, while the cause is prolonged, he should obtain the extension of the Office and Mass for the whole Augustinian Order, and the whole bishopric of Salamanca, or at least the town of Sahagún. Antolinez, 63. When the Order had set forth this its desire to Philip III, King and our Lord, and to His Majesty Doña Margaret of Austria, the Queen, and to the whole Kingdom and Ecclesiastical Estate, and also to the City, Church, and University of Salamanca, they obtained from each commendatory letters. And of the royal letters indeed this is the tenor: "The King. Duke of Sessa and Baena, of my Council, in the year 1603 Philip III and his consort write to their Legate in the City and my Orator etc. You will still remember the solicitude with which I wrote to you elsewhere, to supplicate His Holiness for the Canonization of the blessed Friar John of St. Facundus. Now, because the very delay has made the desire grow, in me and in all these my kingdoms, of seeing so holy a work consummated, for the greater glory of God and the solace of the faithful, I enjoin you, to represent to His Beatitude the affection with which I await its conclusion; supplicating that he deign to pursue the business, and hasten it as much as possible: but meanwhile to permit, that in the city of Salamanca, the kingdom of Castile, and the whole Augustinian Order, his Office be recited, as it is permitted to be recited where his body is kept: since in the justification of the Process already made there is enough disposition, that His Holiness can do this, to the honor of the servant of God."

[109] The Queen wrote in this manner: "Duke of Sessa and Baena, Cousin, etc. Although I know for certain that the King my Lord writes to you, to procure the acceleration of the Canonization of the Blessed Fr. John of St. Facundus, of the Order of St. Augustine; and to that end you bring all necessary offices; yet, that I may satisfy my own devotion, and the desire by which I am held to see him quickly inscribed in the Catalogue of Saints, I have wished to charge you, that on my part too you represent that affection to His Holiness; asking, that at my instance, and out of singular grace toward me, he deign to abridge as much as possible the terms of the Canonization; and meanwhile honor him, by ordering that of him there be recited at Salamanca, throughout the kingdom of Castile, and through the whole Augustinian Order: for great will be the solace which the faithful of these parts will thence receive, and especially I, who will singularly esteem that grace of His Holiness. Valladolid, the 20th of March 1603. I the Queen. Don Pedro Franqueza."

[110] and the kingdom of Castile supplicates the Pontiff: The Kingdom of Castile supplicated thus: "Most Holy Father. From the time of the Catholic Kings Ferdinand and Isabella of glorious memory, the cause of the Canonization of blessed John of St. Facundus has hung suspended, sprung from this kingdom, and a Friar of the Augustinian Order: of whose holiness and approval of life it is most fully established to Your Holiness; since at that time, in which the kingdoms of Poland and Catalonia rose from the feet of Your Holiness, the Canonization of St. Hyacinth of the Order of Preachers being obtained, Your Holiness deigned to favor the Augustinian Order, by beatifying the aforesaid Saint, and designating a day on which the Mass and Office of him should be recited in the convent of St. Augustine at Salamanca. But that through this the fruit of so desired a success may be extended to the kingdom of Castile, this Kingdom humbly supplicates His Holiness, prostrated with due reverence at his feet, as a child of obedience, according to the zeal known to him of Philip III, its King and natural Lord; that he indulge it the favor it asks, by ordering the cause of the Canonization to be continued and finished. But while this grace is deferred, and the feast is not yet generally celebrated in all the external Catholic kingdoms; let this Kingdom and the whole Augustinian Order be able to celebrate it, by extending the grace already begun to be made, as the holy See is wont to do with other Saints, namely St. Julian Bishop of Cuenca, and St. Agnes of Montepulciano of the Order of St. Dominic: which was done also for St. Raymond, before he was canonized, and for very many others. But because it befits the clemency and supreme power of Your Holiness, to bring undertakings to their due and desired end, it is fitting also to promote the same. That as the Saint himself proceeded from virtue to virtue, so also with equal step the reward proceed in the Church Catholic militant, conferred on him from the hand of Your most blessed Holiness, from which this Kingdom most firmly trusts to obtain that grace, which with all heart and soul it prays God and our Lord, that he preserve Your Holiness, for the universal guardianship and utility of his Church. Valladolid, the 28th of October 1602. Most Holy Father. The humble and devout Kingdom of Castile, kissing your most holy Feet. On the part of the Kingdom of Castile, Don Juan de Inestrosa, Secretary."

[111] After these, the Congregation of all the Metropolitan and Cathedral Churches of the kingdoms of Castile and León, likewise the Ecclesiastical estate, assembled at Valladolid by the authority of the Apostolic See: "Most Holy Father. Among the causes of greater moment and weight, Most Holy Father, which it was fitting that this Ecclesiastical Congregation should treat of Your Holiness, was the Canonization of the blessed Father Fr. John of St. Facundus, a professed Religious of the Order of St. Augustine in the convent of Salamanca, so greatly desired by all Spain. And although the clemency of Your Holiness, after long courses of years, corresponding to the common devotion and zeal of these Kingdoms, beatified that glorious Father, and gave license that in the said monastery his feast be held every year, and a Mass be said of him (a grace surely singular and specially done to our Ecclesiastical Estate, since that blessed Father was once a Canon of the Church of Burgos), yet we cannot omit, but that we supplicate Your Holiness, fallen down at your feet; that (since indeed it has pleased God to adorn the Ecclesiastical Estate of these Kingdoms with the holiness of so great a Father, and has illustrated him in life and after death with the glory of many miracles; on account of which from many times back so many Princes have asked the same grace of the Apostolic See; namely the Catholic Kings Ferdinand and Isabella, the Emperor Charles V, Philip II, and now our King Philip III) it may please Your Holiness to assent to the so holy requests of such great Princes and of this your Ecclesiastical Estate, as a sharer of so divine a benefit in its own cause, and to impose a glorious end to that Canonization, to the honor of God and the edification of the Catholic Church, the confusion of heretics, and the holy and common exultation of this Province, so devoted to Your Holiness. Meanwhile, however, Most Holy Father, while Your Holiness completes the work, which it has so happily begun, we ask, that the feasts, which Your Holiness permitted to be kept of that blessed man in the Convent of Salamanca, may with your license be kept throughout the whole Kingdom in the monasteries of the Order of St. Augustine. May almighty God guard and increase Your Holiness, as the true Shepherd and solicitous Helmsman of the Church. Valladolid, in the monastery of St. Paul, of the Order of St. Dominic, designated for our assemblies, the 16th of November 1602. Your Holiness's humble Chaplains. The Abbot of Banca, Secretary."

[112] This was the Letter of the Duke of Lerma. "Most Holy Father. and the Duke of Lerma, The favors and graces with which Your Holiness enriches these Kingdoms are so continual and so great, that the more are received, the more they animate to ask new ones. Indeed for that which this Kingdom received, and I particularly, through the justification of the Process and Office of St. John of Sahagún of the Order of St. Augustine, made by Your Holiness, I a thousand times kiss your most holy Feet; because from the account, which the Duke of Sessa sent, I understood that that grace is imputed to me. But because the mother of this Saint was from a town of my dominion, in whose dominion the Saint's mother was born; his miracles so many and so great, the devotion of the people so wonderful, and I so devout to him; I am moved never to put out of sight the grace, which Your Holiness has begun to make us. I supplicate moreover Your Holiness humbly, that you deign to amplify and honor my family with so glorious a crown, that I may see in my days that Canonization perfected. Indeed I shall value that grace the more, that it shall have come from that most blessed hand, as I hope it will come: so that on account of it these Kingdoms may pray God, that he guard the most blessed person of Your Holiness, as the Church needs, for the greater increase of Christendom, and as I desire, your most humble son and servant. Valladolid, the 23rd of August, 1602. Most Holy Father, I kiss the feet of His Holiness, his humble son and servant, the Duke of Lerma."

[113] The City of Salamanca The City of Salamanca supplicated in this manner: "The glorious saint Fr. John of St. Facundus, of the Order of the sacred Doctor St. Augustine, dwelt the greater part of his life in this city. Which, because it enjoyed the example of his life, the fruit of his doctrine, and the great miracles wrought in its sight, before and after his death; is most devoutly affected toward him; and therefore was singularly gladdened by that grace, which Your Holiness did us, by beatifying him, and permitting that of him there be recited on the day of his festivity. Whence soon this city chose him as its Patron, Protector, and special Advocate; and bound itself by a perpetual vow to observe his day, and to celebrate the feast.

But now we humbly pray Your Holiness, that you deign to order that the Canonization be brought to its end, and so that in the most happy time of your Pontificate, these Kingdoms and all Christendom may rejoice in the grace so greatly desired. Meanwhile may Your Holiness indulge us, that in the Cathedral church of this city, and the whole diocese and the Kingdoms of Castile and León, the same Office with Mass may be recited, on his feast day, just as it is recited in the convent of St. Augustine of this same city: which thing will bring the greatest solace to the whole region. And all of us will pray God, that he guard Your Holiness for very many years, with that happiness which we desire, to his glory, and the utility of the whole Christian commonwealth. At Salamanca, from our Consistory, the 19th of October 1602. On the part of the city of Salamanca, Gregorio a Ponte, Secretary."

[114] The University too asked as much through these letters. "The University of Salamanca (to which the Apostolic See, from its very beginning, and the University: until the times of Your Holiness, does a thousand graces) many things vehemently illustrate; but above all, that in its studies it educated the holy man John of St. Facundus: who from our major College of St. Bartholomew was received into the famous convent of St. Augustine, where he shone forth in holiness of life, and in the continuation of Evangelical preaching; so that he not only pacified this city, overflowing with the blood of the factions swelling in it; but also brought back all Spain to a better form of living. His body is in the church of that Convent with great veneration, illustrious through such great miracles, that the Catholic Kings Ferdinand and Isabella, and their successors, the Emperor Charles V, and King Philip II, with many prayers supplicated for his Canonization, and at last Philip III; by whose supplication moved, Your Holiness, Most Blessed Father, did these Kingdoms so great a grace, as is, to have beatified that holy man, by giving license that the Office and Mass be done of him on the 12th of June. This grace, singularly done to it, this University of Your Holiness reckons, and acknowledges as such, and in testimony of this thing with grateful mind decreed to celebrate his feast together with the city of Salamanca, which took him as Patron. And so, prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness, we humbly ask, that you be not willing our prayers to fall in vain, by honoring this University with that signal grace, by which the Canonization of this holy Man, now begun by Your Holiness, may be happily brought to its end; whence to God glory, to heresies confusion, to the Church advantage, and to the honor of this University there will accrue from Your Holiness, whom may God preserve for very many years for the good of his Church. At Salamanca, the 13th of April 1603. After the kiss given to the feet of Your Holiness, Don Juan de Salas y Gualdes, Rector; Fr. Francisco Zumel, Master of the School; Doctor Bartolomé, Secretary."

[115] The major College of St. Bartholomew added its vow thus: "Words are lacking, with the College of St. Bartholomew by which the joy and exultation of the sons of this College of St. Bartholomew can be explained to Your Holiness, on account of the signal grace, conferred on it by Your Holiness, in the Beatification of our brother, son of the same College, Blessed John of St. Facundus. For what greater gladness can befall us, than through the infallible definition of the Apostolic See to know for certain, that we have a brother Advocate in heaven, to intercede for us? Moreover, since Your Holiness is the Vicar of Christ in his Church, who perfects undertakings and brings them to their end; it will be of Your Holiness's affair, to impose the same end too on that Canonization, which the Lord began through Your Holiness. If, prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness, we obtain so great a good, with the famous pomp which the Church is wont to use, our Saint will be canonized: but if we cannot shortly obtain that, may Your Holiness grant your servants, that the Office and Mass of him be used, not only in the diocese of Salamanca, but throughout the whole kingdom of Castile. We hope that by the clemency of Your Holiness our humble supplications are to be heard. But what do I say, ours? since they are common to this City, University, and the whole Kingdom, prostrate before the feet of Your Holiness, and most earnestly requesting the same. May God preserve Your Holiness, for the good and peace of his Church. Done in the city of Salamanca and the Major College, the 21st of September 1602. Your Holiness's, with the kiss of the feet, humble servants, B. S. P. The Licentiate Don Jerónimo de Otálora and Gamboa, Rector."

[116] Finally from the monastery of St. Augustine these things were written. and the Convent of St. Augustine, "Most Blessed Father. More than a hundred years it is, that this monastery of St. Augustine of Salamanca and its sons have insisted with the Apostolic See, for the Canonization of blessed St. John of St. Facundus: nor do the voices of the people suffer them to depart from the doors of the Church, seeing his holiness confirmed by such illustrious and continual miracles. For it does not cease to persuade itself, that from our negligence alone and the lack of diligence of thy sons it proceeds, that he has not yet been entered in the Catalogue of the saints, a worthy reward of his heroic virtues, and so well seen by Your Holiness, by the splendor of those lights which it uses for such actions, the Holy Spirit approving them; to whom, ever assisting his Church, it has pleased, after so many years, in which that Saint flourished in it, to set him forth openly by the hands of Your Holiness, when it beatified him, and permitted that of him the Office and Mass be said in this monastery, heaped with so many graces from heaven, ever since that Saint took the habit in it, that, words failing by which to signify joy for so singular a benefit, in its mouth nothing sounds but the words of David, 'The just man flourished like a palm.' But although the favor, bestowed on this House by Your Holiness, be of that kind, which heaven knows how to esteem, because the earth is not capable of such great things; yet it humbly asks Your Holiness, that license be given it, after the kiss fixed on the most holy feet, of supplicating, that into the public light of the whole Church it may bring forth its saint, as it brought him forth to the church of St. Augustine of Salamanca.

[117] The same ask Your Holiness the Catholic Kings, Charles V, Philip II, he asking it, which the Pontiff himself so often asked and other holy Princes and Prelates, now deceased: whose humble prayers, as they live before God (for the desire of the just does not perish), so it is just that they live before the eyes of Your Holiness, his Vicar; since in the name of all Cardinal Aldobrandini (Your Holiness, I say, then Protector of our Order) so often asked of the Apostolic See the Canonization of our saint, which he could then have said, if he had seen that which is now done: 'What do you ask of me, which you yourself will be able to give?' Which since they are so, as they are; can it be, Most Holy Father, that such prayers should not find grace before the most clement eyes of Your Holiness? while he was still a Cardinal, May Your Holiness pardon, we beseech, us your humble servants; and permit us, seeing so many supplications for the canonization of our saint, and among these the prayers also of Your Holiness, before you were Pontiff, if we say, that which on another occasion St. Augustine our Father said: 'Lord, if you do not hear these prayers, which will you hear?' May our Lord preserve Your Holiness many years for the utility of his Church. At Salamanca, the 15th of September 1602. Most Holy Father, with the kiss of your holy feet, Fr. Agustín Antolinez, Prior Provincial."

[118] These letters, why made Latin from the Spanish? Other Princes too, Prelates, and Communities of these Kingdoms; likewise the Cathedral Churches, Colleges, Monasteries, by letters given individually, asked His Holiness, to complete the desired canonization: but meanwhile to extend the Brief of Beatification. Thus far all from Antolinez, and indeed from his Spanish version rendered again into Latin, as we think also most of the writings were which were to be offered to the Pontiff and the Congregation; although I would have preferred to give the original Latin words from the autographs; as in no. 78 I gave from Mariz the Brief of Beatification, A Poetic Contest proclaimed by the Convent. which alone is read in Spanish in Antolinez. But if it was not easy for that Portuguese, wishing to extend his work into a great volume, to obtain the rest in Latin; how should I hope, placed far from Spain in Belgium, to obtain all the original texts? The same Mariz, all things being related, the Letters which I profess to have related from Antolinez, interrupts the context with a most ample account of a certain Poetic Contest, to which the Convent of Salamanca, intent on the most festive possible preparation for celebrating the festivity of the hoped-for Canonization, challenged all the Italian talents, thirteen themes of poems to be composed being proposed, and prizes which the two first in each theme should carry off: then he reports the poems themselves, to which by the judgment of the Ten the first prizes were awarded: which the curious of such things will find in him, but for us it suffices to have indicated Chapters XI and XII of part II, where these things will be found. Now I proceed with Antolinez at Chapter LXIV.

CHAPTER XII.

The desired extension is obtained for the Order alone and the towns of St. Facundus and Cea.

[119] The Duke of Sessa, about to fulfill what the King his Lord had charged him by letter, supplicating the most holy Lord on the part of His Majesty, The Spanish Orator in the City, gathering the wishes of all, offered him this memorial, in the name of the Catholic King. Antolinez, 64. "More than a hundred and twenty years it is, that from this to a better life passed blessed Fr. John of St. Facundus, of the Order of St. Augustine of the Province of Castile. And because God manifested his holiness, living and dead, by many miracles, the Catholic King Ferdinand of glorious memory began to supplicate for his Canonization with the holy Apostolic See, he offers a memorial for urging the canonization of John, and by command of Paul III of happy recollection a Process was formed to give some beginning to the work: but the people persevered in his devotion, at Salamanca where he died, and his body rests. And the city itself and the surrounding places daily receive from the Lord enormous benefits through his intercessions. Then at the request of Philip II and III, Your Holiness in the year 1601 granted a Brief of Beatification, indulging that at Salamanca, in the convent of St. Augustine, where his body is buried, the Office with feast could be celebrated; whence great spiritual fruit arose: and the City, taking him as Patron, by public vow bound itself to observe the day of his feast: which same the town of St. Facundus, the Blessed man's homeland, vowed to observe, the fast of the Pre-vigil being premised. And when the Catholic King had visited his holy body, His Majesty, together with the Nobles and many Peoples, prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness, humbly supplicates for the Canonization of that Saint, that the devotion of the faithful may be continued and grow. But while this is being done, may Your Holiness deign to permit, and the extension of the Office: that of the same

Saint there be recited in the kingdom of Castile, and in the city of Salamanca, where his body is, and in the town of St. Facundus his homeland, and in the whole Order of St. Augustine, by extending the Brief itself, hitherto restricted to the place of burial: so that the Catholic King, and the Kingdom and the Order, prevented by so singular a grace of Your Holiness, may remain obligated to pray God (which they also now do) for the long life of Your Holiness, and the greater exaltation of the Faith and of the Apostolic See."

[120] The Memorial being read, the Pontiff sent it back to the Congregation of Rites: and it being referred to the Congregation of Rites and so, the business being referred to it, for justifying the memorial, he conceived a brief information and offered it to the Congregation in these words. "Most Illustrious and most Reverend Lords, two things the Catholic King asks in his Memorial, which the Duke of Sessa presented to His Holiness, and which he referred to Your Illustrious Lordships, seeking your judgment. First, that the Canonization of Blessed St. John of St. Facundus be treated, and proceeded with even to its conclusion. Secondly, that meanwhile, while this is being done, it may please Your Holiness, who in past years beatified the servant of God, so illustrious in holiness and miracles, to extend the Brief of Beatification, by permitting that the Mass be said throughout the whole Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, he represents to it the equity of each request, of which he is a son; and the whole kingdom of Castile, whence he is sprung, and specially in the city of Salamanca, where he lived the greater part of his life and shone with miracles; and in the town of St. Facundus, his homeland. And both are plainly conformable to the sacred Canons and the custom of the Roman Catholic Church.

[121] The first is justified by the Process for the Canonization, legitimate and sufficient by the judgment of Your Illustrious Lordships and of this holy Congregation, the processes having been approved long ago, and of the Cardinals Baronius, Antoniano, and Bellarmine, to whom it was referred before His Holiness beatified the servant of God, and expedited his Brief; and likewise by the opinion of the two Auditors of the Rota, to whom His Holiness likewise referred the Process: which His Holiness held for sufficient; and the Beatification having been celebrated; since from it he proceeded to the Beatification, by declaring him holy, and worthy to be honored with public worship, through the recitation of the Office and Mass, in the convent of St. Augustine at Salamanca, where his body is held with great veneration. And it is established that, the proof of the holiness and miracles of some servant of God being had, one can proceed further in such a cause; especially the fame of holiness and miracles always continuing, as is established by the Memorial of the Catholic King, and by the letters of that Kingdom, and authentic testimonies.

[122] and various examples of similar grace previously granted. The second is thus proved by itself, so that it needs not to be confirmed by new reasons, since so many examples persuade it. Calixtus III granted a similar grace in honor of St. Albert, of the Order of the Carmelites; and Sixtus IV extended it. Paul III extended the Privilege, which was concerning the worship of St. Raymond, to all the monasteries of the Order of St. Dominic throughout the kingdom of Aragon. But what need to fetch testimonies from abroad to prove that truth, when Our Most Holy Lord Pope Clement VIII, of whom that grace is asked on the part of the Catholic King and his Kingdom, granted it in honor of blessed Lawrence Justinian, Patriarch of Venice, and expedited the privilege of extension: and the same grace His Holiness granted in honor of Blessed St. Agnes of Montepulciano of the Order of St. Dominic. Known too is the cause, for which that grace is granted: because by the first Beatification the devotion toward the Saint grew more in the city of Salamanca, so well deserving any grace from this holy See; and in the whole Order of St. Augustine.

[123] and the notorious increase of public devotion. And so it is most just, that His Holiness should correspond to the desire of the Catholic King and that Kingdom, and of so many Princes and Communities: especially since it can be hoped, as with the best reason it is hoped, that thus devotion toward the saint and the divine worship will grow more; because at the first Beatification, the city of Salamanca ordered the day of the happy passing of this saint to be held a feast, and received him as Patron, and made a vow and oath always to celebrate and to assist in a body at the solemnity of the same in the monastery of St. Augustine, where his body is held in such great veneration. The same did the town of St. Facundus, with a vow and oath of a perpetual fast on its Pre-vigil. Likewise the Congregation was informed, on the part of the Catholic King and his Orator the Duke of Sessa, by Don Francisco de la Peña, Auditor of the Rota, the extraordinary protector of that cause."

[124] Which seen (as is had in the Process of Canonization), the same sacred Congregation of Rites, by command and consent of Our Most Holy Lord the Pope, judged the said grace of reciting an Office not Double, Moved by these, the Congregation judges that what was asked should be granted, that the Sunday be not impeded, to be extended to the whole Religion of the Hermits of St. Augustine; that, just as the monastery of St. Augustine of Salamanca recites the Office and says the Mass of the said Blessed John, all the Religious of the said Religion throughout the whole world may recite and say it, from the Common of a Confessor not a Pontiff, according to the Rubrics of the Roman Missal and Breviary. Antolinez, 65. Thus the Congregation judged and declared the 6th of September 1603, for the whole Order, by command and consent and express will of Our Most Holy Lord the Pope, Alexander Cardinal of Florence. I. P. Mucantius. And conformably to the decree of the sacred Congregation, His Holiness granted the whole Augustinian Religion the grace asked, and expedited a Brief on the 15th of October, of this tenor:

[125] "Pope Clement VIII, for the perpetual memory of the matter. Great is the desire by which we are held, for which a Brief is expedited, of propagating on earth the memory of the Blessed, now reigning in heaven with Christ, to the glory of God and the edification of the faithful; especially when the Catholic Kings ask it, and pious and religious Princes, and the rest of the faithful, and so we know it to be expedient in the Lord. For we have already elsewhere given our letters of the following tenor, namely, for the perpetual memory of the matter. 'Whatever things pertain to the divine worship etc.' as above no. 78 and following. But because afterward the said Philip the Catholic King, all the cities and Metropolitan and Cathedral churches of the kingdom of Castile and León, and many Princes and Grandees of the same Kingdom, especially the noble man Francisco de Sandoval Duke of Lerma, also Prelates and other ecclesiastical and secular persons, Colleges, Religious Orders, and the University of the general study of Salamanca, in view of so many supplicants and especially the whole Order of the Friars Hermits of St. Augustine, by letters, supplications, and memorials, by their Orators and Procurators, especially by our beloved son the noble man Antonio Duke of Sessa, Orator of the said Catholic King in our Curia, and by Master Fr. Luis de los Ríos, Procurator of the Castilian Province of the said Order of St. Augustine, have humbly supplicated us, that we should proceed to the Canonization of the said Blessed John of St. Facundus; and meanwhile, for our accustomed Apostolic kindness, deign to extend and amplify the abovesaid letters.

[126] We, wishing to use our kindness, and to assent to their prayers, by the opinion of the Congregation of Rites by the opinion and judgment of our venerable Brothers the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, of the sacred Congregation of Rites, to whom we committed that business, that the matter being seen and examined they should make report to us, as our beloved son Master Francisco Peña, our Chaplain and Auditor of the Rota, informed them in particular, by command and in the name of the aforesaid Antonio, Duke and Orator of the aforesaid Philip the Catholic King; by the tenor of the present letters, we extend by Apostolic authority the aforesaid letters, to the whole Order of the Friars Hermits of St. Augustine throughout the whole world, and to all the Friars and Nuns of the said Order, extended to each House and person of both sexes and to each of them; that, as in virtue of the aforesaid letters the Friars of the monastery of St. Augustine of the city of Salamanca and of the Province of Castile can say the Mass and Office of the aforesaid Blessed John in their church of St. Augustine at Salamanca; so also henceforth they may, in any house or church of the said Order, wherever it shall be, say in the same manner the Mass and Office, reading or singing, from the Common of one Confessor not a Pontiff, conformably to the Rubrics of the Roman Missal and Breviary, provided it be not made Double (except where the Body or some notable and great Relic of the said Blessed John shall be), that the Sunday be not impeded. Notwithstanding any of those things, which in the aforesaid letters we were unwilling to be an obstacle, or anything else whatever contrary to the aforesaid. We wish also that to copies of the present letters, even printed, the same faith be given which would be given to the present, provided they be confirmed by a public Notary, and signed with the seal of some Person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity. in the year 1603, the 11th of October. Given at Frascati, under the Fisherman's Ring, the 11th day of October 1603, the twelfth of our Pontificate. Master Vestrius Barbianus."

[127] These things being thus obtained, the Augustinian Order could not at all acquiesce in the grace granted to itself alone: but went on to hope that it should be further extended, [and again according to the prayers of the Duke of Lerma and his wife the Countess of Lemos,] although then deprived of a powerful protector at Rome by the absence of the Duke of Sessa. But how it obtained this will appear from the following Brief, which again we take in its original Latin text from Mariz. "Pope Clement VIII, for the perpetual memory of the matter. Whereas We have lately granted, that in the whole Order of the Friars Hermits of St. Augustine, every year the Mass and Office of Blessed John of St. Facundus, a professor of the same Order, on the twelfth day of June, from the Common of a Confessor not a Pontiff, according to the Rubrics of the Roman Missal and Breviary, as we had before granted for some particular places, might be celebrated; as is more fully contained in our letters expedited thereupon in the form of a Brief. And whereas our beloved son the noble man Francisco de Sandoval, Duke of Lerma, and our beloved daughter in Christ, the noble woman Catalina de Zúñiga, Countess of Lemos; on account of their affection of devotion toward the said Blessed John; desire that such a Mass and Office of the said Blessed John, in the town of Sahagún, in which the same Blessed John was born; and in the town of Cea, the homeland of the mother of the same Blessed John (which two towns are in the dominion of the said Francisco Duke), and also in the city of Salamanca, in which the same Blessed John bore abundant fruits in the Lord; may be celebrated in the same manner as in the church of the Friars of the said Order: and whereas We were therefore, in the names of the same Francisco Duke and Catalina Countess, through our beloved son Alfonso Manríquez, humbly supplicated, that we deign opportunely to provide in the premises, of Apostolic kindness.

[128] We, desiring kindly to assent to their pious desire, for the towns of St. Facundus and Cea. and holding the tenor of our aforesaid letters as expressed in the present, inclined to such supplications, that in any churches whatever, both of secular Clerics and of regulars of any Order of both sexes, of the said towns of Sahagún and Cea, the Mass and Office of Blessed John, on the abovesaid day, in the same manner and form in which they can be celebrated in the Churches of the said Order, by our Apostolic indult, according to the form of the same our letters, in all and through all may be celebrated; and that those celebrating such a Mass and Office in the aforesaid churches thereby satisfy, as if they celebrated the Mass and Office of the current in the same year, the 24th of November. feast, according to the rite of the Roman Missal and Breviary, on that day, by Apostolic authority by the tenor of the present we grant and indulge; notwithstanding the Apostolic Constitutions and Ordinances, and all others which in the said letters we were unwilling to be an obstacle, and all other things to the contrary whatsoever. Given at Rome at St. Peter's, under the Fisherman's Ring, the 24th day of November, 1603, the 12th year of our Pontificate. M. Vestrius Barbianus." This was the state, says Antolinez, ending his book, of the hoped-for Canonization, when the so near hope, which the Augustinian Order had placed in Clement VIII, was cut off in the year 1605 by his death. Yet such hope seemed to revive, by the election of Leo XI, who had been present at that Congregation, by which the Process about the Saint was declared sufficient, and the decree of Beatification approved: the death of the Pontiff following stays the progress of the cause. but he too quickly died. Nevertheless the election of Paul V which followed brings new hopes, says Antolinez: for I know not what good omen it suggests, that the cause which was first begun under the Third of the same name, ought to be terminated under the Fifth. May God grant, as he can, that this confidence too be not vain. Thus he, in somewhat more words for his affection.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Relics of the Saint translated into Portugal, magnificently received, and illustrated by many miracles.

[129] This is the sum of a lengthy book on the matter. Mariz, proceeding further, fills the remaining part of his vast work, by describing the feasts celebrated at Lisbon in the same year 1603, at the reception of the Relics of the same Saint, by describing minutely all the apparatus of the processions, theaters, spectacles, and poems; from which I abstain, lest I burden the reader, now sufficiently and more than enough wearied with so many lengthy documents nearly all concurring to the same effect: whose whole tenors, such as they are, it has pleased to give, that they may be a testimony, how much more gladly we would give more from the originals of the Canonization now at last completed, if the Order had caused us to have them. The matter most lengthily expanded by Mariz, Valaurio thus compressed into a few words, in book 3 chapter 11.

[130] The royal city of Lisbon, capital of Portugal, excited by the wonders of Blessed Father John of St. Facundus published throughout all the kingdoms of the Spains, in the year 1603 a legate sent from Lisbon to Salamanca, conceived an ardent desire of possessing also some Relic of him; trusting that it would be to that generous nation, so greatly contending against the infidels, a pledge of enormous victories. Valaurio, bk. 3, ch. 11. Therefore in the year 1603 there was sent by the Provincial, P. Antonio de Resurrección, with the title of Orator, P. Antonio de Azevedo, that in the name of the whole Province he might supplicate the Fathers of Salamanca. And he indeed set forth the matter with effective words: yet he found some obstacle, when there was consultation about it; some suggesting, of how great consequence it would be, to open the way to many, to whom it could no more be denied, who would ask a share of the treasure, to be guarded with the utmost care and so gradually dispersed. Others, however, went into the opinion of P. Antolinez, saying, that that royal city ought not to be brought into comparison with others, on account of various reasons; and so an authentic instrument was signed, by which one bone of the arm was handed over on the 21st of December, the feast of St. Thomas, protector of the Portuguese victories. And a thing worthy of note seemed, that the silver casket, brought from Lisbon for that end, not without fear lest it should be too small, the 21st of December he obtains a bone of the arm. was found so proportioned to that bone, as if it had been made to its measure. Nor was it held less ominous, that in a time most rainy, in which, the rivers and pools overflowing, the roads were broken and difficult to traverse, and unknown to the muleteers; so great a space of journey, as there is between Salamanca and Lisbon, was accomplished without inconvenience, and so the aforesaid Relic arrived on the first day of the year 1604.

[131] and brought to Lisbon the 1st of January Those good Religious received it on their knees let down to the ground and with hands raised on high, as if sent from heaven. Meanwhile the City together with the Archbishop Don Miguel de Castro, and the Viceroy the Lord Count Alfonso de Castel-blanco, not so much by urging edicts published, as stimulated by their own piety, prepared themselves for the day of the 21st of February to be celebrated with every demonstration of public gladness, with triumphal arches and chariots, with fountains of wine and fire, and other devices. The abundance of jewels exceeds estimation, which shone on the heads and garments of the persons, adorned for symbolic representations. But above all admirable was she who, carried on a generous horse representing Fame, it is carried about most festively the 21st of February. bore at the head of the procession a banner, marked with the Augustinian device, with the image of the Saint himself: for her adornment was estimated at more than a hundred thousand crowns. At the same time there offered a pleasant spectacle to eyes and minds, statues expressive of the Sciences, Virtues, Vices, and similar other ideal persons, arranged in just proportion. Games too, wrestlings, and innocent conflicts on land and river, showed the utmost of strength applied. Finally inimitable inventions, innumerable devices, inexplicable pomp, inestimable riches, appeared, so that the gold spent on them was of the cheapest. Which, lest they be believed exaggerated by hyperbole, let the reader know, that of those who studied to collect and describe all things minutely, this was the opinion, that they did not doubt to assert, that the treasures of the richest emporium in the whole world were spent, nay exhausted, on that matter.

[132] Sepulchral earth brought to the Poor Clares At this solemnity, and at the many graces by Divine John liberally poured out on that generous City, two Religious of the Augustinian Order were present, P. Manuel Capralis and P. Bartolomé de San Agustín, making a pilgrimage to St. James in Galicia. It happened to them on the way to visit the monastery of St. Clare in Villa-Comitis, where there were two own sisters, nuns and kinswomen of P. Capralis: who, when from the account of these Religious they had understood, what festivity had been held at Lisbon, what graces had been related of the Saint, desired to have something of his sepulchral earth; and she was made partaker of her wish, who insisted more fervently, Doña Filipa de Monte-oliveto: because she intended to apply it to the niece of a certain friend of hers, Catalina de Ángeles, who for a year and a half lay fixed to her bed, immobile in her whole body and paralytic in all her members. and applied to a paralytic woman, heals her, She, when she touched the holy earth, felt her whole heart bathed with gladness; notwithstanding a certain most sharp, but momentary torment, while her hands and limbs were loosened. But soon raised up upon the bed, and descending onto the pavement, with the astonishment of those present, she rendered thanks to God and the Saint, then, as if brought back to a new life, she wished her name to be changed, and instead of Filipa de Ángeles to be called Juana de San Facundo.

[133] Scarcely had the miracle been published, and authentically approved by the Vicar of that town, when a certain Antonio Fernández, formerly a sailor, who, fallen from the mast of a ship, dragged behind him a leg broken and badly cured, and one nearly dying from a broken leg. with continuous and extreme torment; betook himself to the Nuns of St. Clare, together with his most afflicted mother, not without tears asking a little of that miraculous earth: which, for the sake of greater veneration entrusted to the hands of the Chaplain, and brought into the sight of the sick man, so affected him, that, struck by a grave symptom, he soon seemed about to expire. But this was nothing else than a certain conflict of life and death, by no means bloodless. For the sick man vomited up much corrupt blood and pus, and the victory remained to life, complete health being restored. And this miracle too was examined by command of the Archbishop of Braga, and permitted to be made public; of which thing the aforesaid Religious carried off with them an authentic instrument. To this succinct synopsis of the greatest matters, it pleases to note from Mariz, On account of the presence of a fleet soon to sail, the feast is anticipated. that the cause of anticipating in the month of January the feast, which otherwise should have been celebrated in June, was the presence of very many ships standing in the port, and soon to be dispersed into every region, by which the fame of so great a matter, together with the devotion toward the Saint, could be spread throughout the whole world.

[134] The instrument too of the gift of the venerable bone, the same Mariz produces thus. Mariz, bk. 2, ch. 14. "In the city of Salamanca, From the instrument of the Relic given it is had, the 21st day of December 1603, when I was in the monastery of St. Augustine of this city; before me Diego Nieto Cañete, of the number of the public Scribes of this city, there appeared the Reverend Father Master Fr. Agustín Antolinez, of the Augustinian Order, Provincial of Castile; and said, that by missives of the Reverend Father Fr. Antonio de Resurrección, of the Order of St. Augustine, in the kingdom and province of Portugal, which P. Fr. Bartolomé de Azevedo brought and handed him, a Religious of the said Order and a Conventual and Preacher in the Convent of Our Lady of Graces, of the Order of St. Augustine in the city of Lisbon; he had been asked, that, since in the aforesaid church, at the expense of that convent, a sumptuous chapel is being erected dedicated to the glorious saint John of Sahagún, whose body rests in the church of St. Augustine of this city, [that it was done in view of the chapel which was being erected to the Saint at Lisbon;] in which too he died; he would be willing to give, for Relics for that house and chapel, one bone from the body of that glorious Saint. Which letter and petition being brought into deliberation, it was decreed, that what was asked should be granted: and that so holy a pledge might be held with that reverence which is fitting, and it might be established about its truth, as taken most certainly from the holy body itself, he asked that I should come with him to the tabernacle in which that glorious body is preserved.

[135] and the tomb being opened for this cause, And so on the present Sunday, the same 21st of December, the said Father Provincial, with the Reverend Fathers Fr. Antonio Múgica, Subprior; Fr. Francisco Domínguez, Lector of sacred Theology; Fr. Francisco de Vega, Sacristan; and the said Fr. Bartolomé de Azevedo, Conventual of Lisbon, entered the said tabernacle: and the tomb being taken from the sepulcher, which stood above it covered with a golden cloth, they opened a certain wooden valve fixed there, under which was a stone tomb, covered with a stone bound crosswise by three iron bands, and with as many little chains at the heads of the bands. Which being unlocked and the bands removed, and the stone itself, there was found a wooden box, on the outside clothed with red wax, and adorned with green and yellow borders, but with the joints and lock of a double bolt gilded: which being unlocked, was seen within to be lined with blue silk. And in the top of the little chest there was placed a certain certification, written on parchment vellum, sealed with certain signs; by which it is said, that the body of the glorious Saint lies in the aforesaid box, and that it was translated into it and to the said tabernacle by a Brief of the most holy Lord Pope Leo X, on the sixth weekday (Friday), there was read the testimony of the translation made there in the year 1578. the 17th of January, 1588. Under this writing was a veil of red silk, surrounded with a golden border; and under this another of Holland linen cloth, with a border likewise golden; under which lay the bones of the glorious body of St. John of Sahagún: from which the said Father Provincial, before me and the aforesaid Religious, took one bone, which seemed to be the shaft of an arm from the upper part; which, measured, was found to fill the third part of an ell, and to have a thickness as great as the circumference of a coin of eight reals: and the sacred bones being inspected which bone indeed, placed on the veil of red silk, and in a little wooden box, the Provincial handed to P. Fr. Bartolomé de Azevedo.

[136] Which things being thus done, he again closed the said box, and the tabernacle as they had been before, and asked me to make him faith of the aforesaid. I attest therefore, that before me all the abovesaid were done: under Notarial faith: and that the aforesaid bone of the size already mentioned, handed to the aforesaid Religious, he took from the said tabernacle, to which the bones of St. John of Sahagún seem to have been translated: about which, that it may be established, at the petition of P.M. Fr. Agustín Antolinez, Provincial of Castile, I have given the present. At Salamanca, the 21st of November 1603, etc." This instrument being related, Mariz goes on to describe the preludes of the festivity, from the 15th of January onward, among which too was, on the 16th of the same, a Poetic contest proclaimed; which, like the rest of similar things, we pass over: it is enough to have noted, that the festivity lasted four days. But on the last day, which was sacred to St. Matthias the Apostle, a Confraternity was established, suitable for continuing the devotion toward the Saint, and not too sumptuous, that there might be a place in it even for citizens of moderate fortune; the feast being celebrated through January of the year 1604, contrary to what is observed in some others, and therefore having few enrolled. Mariz concludes the whole argument with an authentic account of the two aforementioned miracles; he prefaces, however, that there had come to his hands a manuscript collection of several other graces, attributed to the intercession of Blessed John; many graces are obtained. in commemorating which he says he forbears, until each shall have been duly examined, which he indicates has begun to be done. He adds finally a new Poetic contest, established in the year 1608, in an Appendix to a book then about to come from the press: in preference to which I would here rather, from Valaurio's book 2 chapter 3, report two apparitions of this time, taken from the Process. Valaurio, bk. 2, ch. 3.

[137] In the year 1607, there was given by P. Pedro Bernardino, an Augustinian of the convent of Béziers in the archbishopric of Narbonne, To a nobleman reading his Life at Brussels in the year 1608 to a certain noble Frenchman a compendium of the life of Blessed John, that he might at Brussels in Belgium hand it to P. Tomás Graciano the Prior, to be submitted there to the press, as had been agreed among them, at the first convenience that should offer itself. The good man kindly undertook the scroll committed to him: but wishing to satisfy his own curiosity first, before handing over the deposit, he drew out delays by no means small. At last on a certain evening, when at length he had finished the reading, he saw in his sleep the Saint appearing to him, the saint appears in a glorious throne; as in a great temple, placed on a beautiful and luminous throne, and clad in Pontificals: before whom, when the Nobleman had prostrated himself on his knees, he seemed to himself to receive from him with raised hand a blessing: and from that time he professed that he remained singularly devout to the Saint, and received many graces from him. The following year on the 11th of January in the same parts, namely the Belgic, a certain devout Religious of the same Order, never gave himself to sleep, but that first from the Life, likewise to another Belgic religious. in which he greatly delighted, he read something. But on a certain occasion, impelled by an affection of special devotion, he commended himself from his heart to the Saint. And behold, he appeared to him in his sleep, with radiant face; and with hands raised to heaven, as if praying God for his salvation. And he too, moved by such a vision, chose him as his spiritual guide; and confesses that he obtained many divine favors through the same.

CHAPTER XIV.

The worship of the Saint propagated even into the Indies and confirmed by miracles.

[138] Meanwhile the fame of the new Saint had flown across even to the new world, although the fame of St. Nicholas of Tolentino had already preceded it there; The Viceroy attests, whence the great General of arms and Viceroy in those parts, Don López de Almendárez, Marquis of Cadarcita, spoke jointly of both in this manner, deposing thus: "Two Saints of the Augustinian Order are reckoned to have specially claimed for themselves the faith and devotion of the Indies: in Mexico St. Nicholas of Tolentino; and in Peru St. John of Sahagún: so that no other heavenly beings seem to be known there. Valaurio, bk. 3, ch. 12. Nor is it a wonder, for so many and so illustrious are the miracles of both among the Spaniards and Indians, that in Peru John alone is venerated, that they do not seem able to remember other Saints. In Mexico the feasts of St. Nicholas of Tolentino last from September to the Lord's Nativity: and so many are devout to him there privately and in common, that they seem able to occupy the whole year: in Mexico Nicholas of Tolentino. but in Peru it is established to me that the same is done concerning St. John." Thus he. And to propagate the worship and devotion toward St. John among the Peruvians, there was sent from Europe Fr. Diego Salmerón, a man of great probity and learning, and altogether worthy to whom such an expedition should be committed. He carried with him there an image of the Saint: and when he had returned to Toledo, he said, Fr. Diego Salmerón sent thither, that in the long and perilous voyage, he did not seem to himself to have done anything else than to cross the river of Seville by boat; and that, overwhelmed by the abundance of miracles brought to him, since he was not sufficient for receiving them legitimately, he imposed that ministry on P. Fr. Antonio Calancha, born in those parts.

[139] And he said, that as soon as he had landed in the port of Lima in the year 1614, he lands in the year 1614, with the image of St. John, having entered the Convent, he took care of nothing sooner, than that with due pomp the image of the Saint should be exposed to public veneration. Special help thereto was brought by Doña Lucía and Doña Catalina Manríquez, who contributed to this a great abundance of most precious jewels: but a certain thief, gathering them, while all were held by sleep, took to flight with them. The theft being detected, but not the thieves, those good matrons ran to the feet of the Saint; and found him neither deaf to their prayers, nor mute against the thief. For he, in fleeing, heard one calling after him, to return the booty: to whose exposition jewels were lent, a certain thief having stolen them, and looking back saw an Augustinian Friar, as if flashing with menacing eyes. Not therefore did he desist from his purpose; but having continued his way, he betook himself to a certain inn: where he was so dismayed in his sleep, that he resolved to bring back all things whence he had taken them. But seduced by his evil genius, he did not seem able to find the way by which to retrace his steps; until, more gravely terrified, he cast himself at the feet of a Confessor; is compelled to bring them back, and unburdened of his fault, unburdened himself of the ill-gotten spoils: which was the first pledge of the many graces to be spread by the Saint through those regions.

[140] When Doña Casilda, daughter of Don Juan Fernández, laboring with fevers, lay given up by the physicians; so that for the expelling of her last breath, only the next paroxysm was awaited; the father had recourse to the image of the Saint; by the touch of a copy taken from it and since he could not have the original, he was content to take a copy; which placed upon the face of the dying woman, the fever vanished. And she, intending to render gratitude, to fulfill her father's vow, became an Augustinian religious in the monastery of the Incarnation. the dying woman recovers. But because there was running from all sides to ask or to acknowledge the grace of health, it was necessary to keep the church open by night and day. In the same year in those parts the evils of quinsy and erysipelas so swelled, that very many died of them: at Cuzco one such but it was for safety to have looked upon the image of the Saint, as upon the bronze serpent. Moreover when, on account of certain urgent affairs, P. Salmerón was compelled to set out for Cuzco, since he was not permitted to carry the holy image with him, he wished at least to carry forth a copy of it: which, wherever it passed, relieved the contagion.

[141] The first to use that benefit was Fr. Juan de Ribera, he heals many of quinsy, born at Arequipa. He at Cuzco, among the other sick of that convent, was so constrained, that for the tenth day now he could swallow nothing, not even liquid; and from the magnitude of the torment and the vehemence of the fever, he had so gone out of his right mind, that, creeping through the infirmary, he was the more worthy of compassion the less capable he was of the last Sacraments. The Prior Fr. Domingo de Setorros prayed for him, by visiting the holy image, which was kept in the Sacristy: and he brought it to the place where the sick man remained: nor did he do more, than to apply it to his side; when the fever withdrew; health returned; and to recover full strength the only work for the sick man was, to fix his eyes on the holy panel. Thence he betook himself to the church, to render due thanksgiving: whence when the people heard the bells rung, they ran up, as if it were the sign of a dead Father, dear there; but they found him alive, with astonishment and joy. This was nothing else than to summon there a multitude of the languishing, which all were healed at that very moment; and many of them cast out through mouth and nostrils a deadly humor: as happened to Isabel de Otálora, who at her last breath had come to the Confessor; and touched by the image, was at once freed from all ill.

[142] another carried 3 miles from there, P. Fr. Pedro de Arribite had gone away, three miles off, on account of the affairs of the Religion: where, wishing to celebrate Mass, he betook himself to the Parish church; and the image being exposed above the altar, he prepared himself for the sacrifice. To venerate it many Indians at once ran up: who, on a certain bier, made in the manner of a net, brought four of their sick women, and among them one contracted and immobile for ten years. But the alms being offered and the Mass said, he raises up a contracted woman they saw her run nimbly through the church to the feet of the Father, that, joining her own voice to his tears, she might help in rendering thanks. Meanwhile the Parish-priest, returning at the sound of the bells which the exulting Indians vied in ringing, and suspecting something of great novelty, and stops the plague of quinsy. heard what had been done from the natives, bursting forth in troops from the church, and everywhere proclaiming the miracle. But when the Father was about to depart, they would not permit him to carry the image back with him: but, however much he resisted, and refused whatever gifts were in turn offered him, he was compelled to leave it to their devotion. But information being taken about this and other miracles, it is asserted and proved, that immediately from the arrival of the aforesaid image the contagion ceased: and the Curate and the other Priests, to whom before, from the administration of the Sacraments, no rest was given by day and night, marveled to be idle and at leisure, since all had gone out from their beds and houses.

[143] By the same disease the wife of Andrés Mussi had been brought to her last extremity; who, although a young woman, had nevertheless not been able to resist the violence of the evil. A woman healed by a flower applied to her. But her husband applied to her a flower, which had touched the image, and suddenly the swelling of her throat went down; and only on the surface remained a single pustule, which too disappeared within a few days. She wished to have the image, to carry it about continually; and making some long journey with her husband, she unfolded it at the first lodging they came to, the miracle wrought on her being narrated: and so at the sight of it there were healed as many sick as were in that place. In several places it stops the prevailing disease. And as much happened in all the rest at which they turned aside, over a space of a hundred and seventy leagues, the sick running together from all sides to look upon the health-bringing image; to the confusion of certain villages, which, neglecting so present a remedy, were exhausted by funerals. There was then at Cuzco Fr. José of the Order of St. Francis, born at St. Facundus: who, brought to death, invoked his fellow-citizen the saint, and was immediately healed.

[144] on account of which and many other things, To a certain poor Indian woman her little son had died. When she had laid him at the feet of the image, the boy rose again with a laugh, and cheerfully called upon his mother. And faith in the Saint grew so greatly throughout the province of Cuzco; that wherever his image could not be carried, cloths, bands, or flowers were sent thence, to be consecrated by its touch and imbued with health-bringing power, with the most certain effect of equal miracles. Finally that metropolis, bound to John by so many benefits, erected to him a sumptuous altar, before which great candles burned by day and night; in such a number and so continually flowing thither did the inhabitants and dwellers, the Saint is chosen Patron of Cuzco. asking and recounting health, that for the first forty days the doors could not be closed to the multitude. But afterward by common vow he was declared Guardian of the city, with the obligation of celebrating his feast every year.

[145] When P. Salmerón passed through Arequipa, he was asked at Arequipa, a paralytic of 12 years being healed to bring the holy image into a certain monastery of his Order; where Doña Marina Cegama, a Nun of the first nobility there, lay for the twelfth year immobile in her whole body; and having almost no other sense than that of pain. When she embraced it brought to her, for a few moments of time she remained as if in ecstasy; then, as if returning to herself, she exclaimed, "Jesus, Jesus," and was healed. So, casting away the crutches on which she stood leaning, she leapt up, and began to run through the chamber, with the astonishment of those standing by, on account of the evidence of so great a miracle. and a sick nobleman, With the same infirmity languished Don Juan Maita Inga, of the stock of the ancient Incas, Kings of Peru. He, at the exhortation of Don Lope de Carvajal, on the occasion of a certain feast which was celebrated at St. Augustine's, commended himself to John of St. Facundus; thinking himself unworthy to approach nearer to the very image of the Saint. He, however, held his faith pleasing, joined to such great humility, and in that very place granted him health.

[146] Doña Juana Coronada, a cancer was consuming from her breast to her shoulders: a cancer being cured, but the touch of the image suddenly healed her. Thence too sought and obtained a remedy, from a stone lodged crosswise in the ureters, Bernardino Valdemario, born at Ciudad Real among the Spaniards. For when he applied it to his side, the stone was broken through the middle; and with the urine, a stone being expelled, which for eight days he had passed none of, and cast out with much pus and stench, he also expelled certain little bits of flesh, which constricted the mouth of the bladder: nor afterward did he suffer any such thing. In the throat of Ana Durán a fish-bone clung, and a bone fixed in the throat and now took away her faculty of speaking: but the Saint being invoked she soon spat it out. These and other prodigies without number having happened at Arequipa, this city too wished to imitate that of Cuzco, and swore to have the Saint as Protector under the same form: the same is done. of which thing the authentic instruments are even now kept in the archive of the Religion.

[147] The people of Ica too are healed, one bedridden woman Meanwhile P. Salmerón departed for Ica: but scarcely had the wonder-working image arrived there, when a certain matron, named Apolonia, fixed to her bed for two years by the violence of disease, whence she could be moved no otherwise than lifted by others' arms; entreated her husband, to permit her to be carried to the church of St. Augustine: where when she had seen the image, she exclaimed, "O blessed Saint! shall I then not be able to rise to my feet?" And rising, she soon added, "And shall I not also bend my knees?" and she bent them, freed of every impediment. and another, Then she continued her prayers, asking also the grace of walking to the altar of the Crucifix: and she went there so swiftly, that at her husband's approach and the glad exclamations of the people, she dared to go and return often, to make the miracle more manifest. Returning afterward home, she met a certain friend of hers, laboring with the same evil: who, animated by such an example to implore the same aid, had scarcely conceived in her mind the resolution of going to the image of the Saint, when suddenly she felt an unusual heat, and soon herself relieved of the swelling and weight, with which she was occupied as far as her knees. And relying on this pledge of fuller grace, she prostrated herself before the Saint, and one suffering from strangury. and soon rose to her feet, her soles firmly strengthened, and returned home healed. There succeeded her Francisco López Gutiérrez, given up by the physicians for obstructed urine; and suddenly relieved, never afterward suffered any such thing.

[148] An adulteress, an adulterer being armed for the murder of her husband At Ica, which is one of the chief towns of that region, lived Juan Spino, very devout to the Saint, and wont to commit himself to his protection every morning: nor indeed without necessity: for his wife, having followed an adulterer, not content to have taken his honor from him, also plotted against his life through him. And this man, to make sure of the crime, having summoned a certain hired assassin friend of his, equipped with a gun loaded with two balls and several smaller pellets, took his stand where he knew he would pass. Spino was present at the hour at which he was expected, and the adulterer aimed the gun against him: but in whatever direction he prepared the shot, he always saw someone interposed. The companion, marveling and at the same time indignant at the delay or sluggishness, heard from the adulterer, is frustrated in his intent by the Saint interposing himself, that it could not be that he should strike the enemy, unless he first pierced an Augustinian Religious, interposed between him and himself. Nevertheless on two other occasions they attempted the same crime, which was always hindered in the same way. Then the assassin, impatient in mind, seized the gun; and discharging it, against the will of his mind, struck the adulterer himself in the arm; but so slightly, that the few pellets, which had penetrated the garment, stuck in the skin.

[149] and at her husband's vow comes to her senses. But because the wicked men were not ashamed to boast of the attempted murder, the good husband did not hesitate on his own part too to publish the deed, in testimony of the miraculous protection afforded him by the Saint: at whose feet prostrate, he offered him the holocaust of charity, laying aside the desire of vengeance, supplicating that he would obtain from God the amendment of his criminal wife, and the salvation of the soul, guilty alike of homicide and of adultery. No sooner said than done: at the same moment of time the woman felt such great penitence for what she had committed, that she became to others, to whom she had been a scandal, an example of rare virtue; and consecrated herself to the service of the Hospitals, liberally relieving the poor of her sex, and ministering to the sick. Moreover, in memory of so many benefits, both spouses by common consent erected a statue to the Saint, and endowed his altar with a perpetual chaplaincy, for celebrating the feast at it: but the penitent woman did not cease to name him, the Saint of her remedy, the Saint of her soul.

[150] In the city of Santa Fe and the Augustinian convent, a certain Religious, also at Santa Fe John becomes patron: brought by a contagious disease to the gates of death, when he had invoked the name of the Saint, deserved to see him in his sleep; who, offering him an apple, as the fruit of life, made him certain that he would not die. From the same likewise another Religious received health, lying sick in an adjoining cell, when he had only applied to himself a little statue of the Saint. The same happened to a certain Franciscan Religious: by whose effort, when the aforesaid little statue had been carried about processionally, and exposed for three days in the major church, and had there bestowed many graces on those invoking him; the City committed itself by public decree to the protection of that Saint, and under his invocation established a pious Confraternity. Sister María of the Holy Spirit, a Dominican, in the monastery of St. Catherine of Siena, for many years a paralytic, was brought to the door of the convent to venerate the holy image; as soon as she applied it to her face, two rays going forth from it, conspicuous to all standing by, brought her the desired health. Sister Agustina of St. Peter, of the Franciscan Order, two paralytic nuns are healed, likewise a paralytic, when P. Salmerón came to the monastery, came to the door: and while she applied the image to herself, she felt her eyes failing, and exclaimed: "Father, I no longer see you, now now I am dying." But the Father, not without a special impulse, reproving her, said: "Not so; hope well: for before twenty-four hours pass, something great will be seen in the Convent." It nearly happened that the prediction was received with laughter: but the event proved its truth, by which within the aforesaid term the sick woman recovered, freed of all ill.

[151] Not unlike was the issue of another prediction, by which the same P. Salmerón in the city of Piura and at Piura a girl from a cancer. foretold to a noble Damsel, Alfonsa Castrilla, that before he should go out of the church, she should be healed of a lethal cancer, eating away her breast. For at these words, she was alienated from her senses and as if plunged in a deep lethargy; but quickly waking, and applying her hand to her breast, and finding nothing of the old evil, she exclaimed: "Jesus! what is this? O my Saint!" The miracle, and an Indian woman from paralysis. which suddenly ran through the mouths of all, a poor Indian woman, long a paralytic, hearing, raised her mind and voice to the Saint: who, appearing to her, exhorted her to go to the church. "But how?" said she. "I cannot. Ah, how?" To whom the Saint, "Tomorrow," he said, "you will be able." And on the following day, brought there by certain devout persons, she was able to return thence healed on her own feet.

[152] The oft-mentioned P. Salmerón was wont, before he entered any place, to send before him his forerunners, whom they call Chiachos. The flames bursting from the ground are turned away from Pasto, When he had done this approaching the city of Pasto, he was asked by those forerunners, to delay a while, until the necessary preparation should be made, for receiving more honorably that holy image. But he, moved by a certain interior instinct to hasten his step with the holy image, which by custom the Royal and Pontifical banners preceded, by which the city, saved, takes him as Patron. entered the city with a numerous and splendid company of horse and foot. But scarcely had he placed that image in the church of the Nuns, to be left there that night; when suddenly the city was turned upside down and everywhere hastened flight, on account of the earth gaping open unexpectedly, which, belching forth flames, threatened destruction to all. The image therefore was brought out into public, and placed in the middle of the marketplace, opposite that horrible conflagration: which being at once turned elsewhere, it appeared that the haste of bringing the image into the city had not proceeded from any obstinacy of the Father, but had been a divine impulse: that from the opportunity of prompt succor a remedy might be prepared for the impending evil. And the City, acknowledging this, the Council being convoked, chose him as Patron, and bound itself by a sworn vow to celebrate his feast.

CHAPTER XV.

The sweet fragrance of the sacred bones. The Canonization at last celebrated. The Relics in Belgium.

[153] A bone of the thigh translated to Burgos Several years after these things (as is in Valaurio, book 3 chapter 11), the city of Burgos, another nurse as it were of the Saint, aspired to obtain a share of that good, of which the city of Lisbon boasted: inasmuch as it had had the Saint as Beneficiary, Canon, Almoner, Father. Equipped with these titles, it did not labor much, to obtain a whole bone of the thigh, of the length of two palms and four inches, whence about the measure of the rest of the body an easy conjecture may be made. For this sacred Relic, given to the orator of Burgos, to be accompanied to that royal city, there offered themselves P. Aguilar, in the year 1648 it is festively received: Prior of the Convent and Professor of the University; and from the College of St. Bartholomew two noble alumni were deputed, Don Baltasar de la Cueva, son of the Duke of Alburquerque; and Don Alfonso Magnos de Ávila, Canon of Toledo. It was received with the glad acclamations of the people, and the festive noise of cannon and bells: then legitimately consigned, on the following Sunday, the 21st of June 1648, it was carried about processionally by the Prelate of the City, and the whole Clergy secular and regular, through the chief streets, adorned with most beautiful altars, and so hung on the walls of the houses, that the whole city presented the appearance of a single temple.

[154] but itself, as also others elsewhere, In completion of this narration it is added, that the Relics shared with Burgos breathed forth a most sweet odor of themselves, just as those which Lisbon possesses or the town of St. Facundus; and indeed much more the whole body. And this odor was so inseparable from the particle granted to the town of St. Facundus, that the Abbot of the place with full faith asserts in the Process, that, having attempted to discern the quality of that fragrance, he found it most different from any other wont to proceed from anywhere. And among his other witnesses there deserves especially to be named and the whole body, the once Duke, now Cardinal of Lerma, who for many years governed the Monarchy: and being asked what he thought of the Blessed, when in a certain Letter of his to the Pontiff he had styled him a Saint, and had pronounced him worthy of that title, which he again supplicated to be sanctioned by Apostolic authority; he added, that he remembered very well, that in the service of Philip III and Queen Margaret, present at Salamanca while the chest was being opened, that Blessed Body (his words are) breathed forth a supernatural and sweet odor: "which I," he says, "perceived most excellently; continues to breathe a sweet odor. and with wonder saw both the aforesaid Majesties, and the rest standing around, to be astonished, and thence to take new incentives of love and affection toward the Blessed, as a great servant and friend of God; to whom we all on his account rendered due thanksgiving."

[155] It remains that we weave to this Commentary the holiness of John, at last advanced to the highest summit of veneration by a solemn Canonization, and so place a crown on it. Pope Alexander VIII made it, on the 16th of October 1690, The Canonization made in the year 1690, the 16th of October. but in such a way that together with him he enrolled among the saints St. Lawrence Justinian, Proto-patriarch of Venice, whose Acts Henschen illustrated at the 8th of January, on which he died: whose feast Innocent XII then transferred to the day of his Episcopal Ordination, the 5th of September: St. John of Capistrano of the Order of Minors, who met death, and will come to be treated by us in this work (unless something be meanwhile changed) on the 23rd of October: St. John of God, common to him and 4 others, from whom took its beginning the Order of Hospitality in Spain, called of Charity in France, whose double Life I gave in Latin on the 8th of March: and St. Pascal Baylon, a Lay-brother of the Franciscan Observance in Spain, who died on the 17th of May, where likewise the reader will find a double Life rendered into Latin by us. The Canonization of these five, celebrated jointly at Rome, was in most Provinces solemnly kept the following year, when Pope Clement it was elsewhere celebrated the following year, had already died on the 1st of February; which was the cause that the Bulls are not yet published, perhaps not even yet composed: whence nevertheless it would be necessary for us to learn, in what order, after the Beatification of each, it was proceeded to the final act. Nor have we yet seen anything published in print, concerning the Saint of Sahagún, about that pomp, with which the Spaniards celebrated the new and enlarged feast of their Patron, especially at Salamanca; whence we will also gladly receive a bundle of new miracles, when it shall seem good to its Order to collect it and give it to the light.

[156] At Antwerp the 6th of May, At Antwerp in Belgium the feast of the same Canonization was celebrated on the 6th of May; and that the solemnity might be greater, the Fathers of this Convent had obtained a notable particle of his Rib, which had now been held at Brussels for about twenty years. The Registers of the Convent of Antwerp hand down the manner of the matter thus. "On the 5th of May, the Saturday before the third Sunday after Easter, a Mass of the Holy Spirit was sung, by the very Reverend and Excellent P. M. Lambert Ledrou, President of the Chapter: who is now Bishop of Porphyreon and Prefect of the Pontifical Sacristy. After the Mass all the Capitular Fathers with the Convent went processionally to the Cathedral church, to carry back to our most adorned temple the venerable statue with the Relics of the said Saint, previously exposed there in the major Choir. And with a great concourse of people the Relics were carried by the Most Ample Lord Dean, the rest of the Lords Canons accompanying. When they had come to our temple, solemn music was sung, and the benediction given with the Venerable by the Lord Dean. a Relic also translated thither: On Sunday, for the sake of greater solemnity, the High Mass, with the Lords Canons assisting, was celebrated by the Most Illustrious Lord Juan Fernando, Bishop of Antwerp. Vespers being sung after midday, P. Noster Jacobus Willemaert, Provincial elected the day before, delivered a panegyric sermon: which finished, a solemn procession was made through the City, accompanied by the very Reverend Lords Canons of the Cathedral Church, the Most Ample Magistracy of the city in a body, the Most Ample Lord Abbot of St. Michael's with his Lords, seven Religious Orders in a body, and our Confraternity of the Girdle, together with the students of our literary Gymnasium, the said Most Illustrious Lord Bishop bearing the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist; but the sacred Relics of St. John, and his statue, the Religious of various Orders bearing on their shoulders by turns."

[157] How these were brought to Antwerp, the following instrument will teach, rendered into Latin from the Spanish: which the Prior of Salamanca in the year 1672, "In the very noble, faithful and ancient and distinguished city of Salamanca, the fourteenth day of the month of September, in the year from the nativity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ one thousand six hundred and seventy-two, in the convent of our glorious Father St. Augustine and the College of St. William, within the precincts of this city of Salamanca, between the tenth and eleventh hour of the night; before me, Diego Antonio Nieto Cañete, royal public and perpetual Scribe, of the number of the Notaries of the city, and the witnesses undersigned; the very Reverend Father Fr. Master Manuel Duque, Prior of the aforesaid Convent of St. Augustine (to whom I the Scribe give faith and acknowledge, that he is such a Prior, and as such exercises the office;) affirmed, that by special decree of the most Reverend Fathers the Provincial, requested by the Fathers of the Convent of Brussels, the Prior and Religious of the Convent of the Hermits of St. Augustine our Father of the city of Brussels in Flanders, it had been written by them to the most Reverend Father Master Fr. Nicolás Cortés, Provincial of the Order in this province of Old Castile, and also to the Lords of the Council of justice and government of this city, likewise to the Lords Rector and Collegians of the major College of St. Bartholomew in the University and this distinguished City, for the reason that the glorious saint John of Sahagún was a Religious of the said Order, and the aforesaid Convent of Brussels is most devoutly affected toward that glorious Saint; to hand to their delegate sent for this into Spain, that they would deign to assent and command, that one bone from his precious body, which is kept in the Convent of Salamanca, to be held as a Relic of that Saint, be handed to the very Reverend Father Fr. Antonino de Witte, a Religious of the aforesaid Order and Prior of the Convent of Herentals in Belgium and the said parts of Flanders, solely chosen and deputed by the said Monastery of Brussels, to carry the aforesaid letters and to transfer such a bone, such as should be given him, for the Relic of that Saint.

[158] And he, when he had handed over the aforesaid letters, and his petition was recognized to be just, the said Father Provincial granted to the aforesaid Father Prior license to hand over, in the presence of those deputed by the City and the College of St. Bartholomew, at his good pleasure, one of the bones of the aforesaid holy body. To which determination, when there had acceded the consent of the Consultor Fathers of that Convent, likewise of the Lords Counselors of justice and government of this city, and also of the Lords Rector and Collegians of the major and most ancient College of St. Bartholomew, of which the Saint himself too was a Collegian; there concurring finally to the same act the Lords, Don Francisco de Castello-Concha, Knight of the Order of St. James, and Corregidor of this city; Don Diego de Moreta Maldonado, Knight of the same Order, and senior Rector, and Commissary named on the part of the city; Don Melchor de Lezana, Knight of the Order of Calatrava, Rector of the said College of St. Bartholomew; Don Pedro Pacheco, Collegian of that College, as colleague of the Rector; for the execution of the aforesaid, all together betook themselves toward the tabernacle and tomb, in which the body of St. John of Sahagún is kept; whence was lifted the urn, standing above the said tomb and body; and under it was found a great wooden chest, closed under two keys.

[159] Then one of them the said Lord Don Miguel de Lezana the Rector brought forth, and the bolt of one lock was opened; the other the said Reverend Father Prior brought forth, and the bolt of the other lock was opened: and so the said wooden chest lay open, under which is a hollowed stone, whose hollow a board covers, having a border of about four fingers, the triple chest being unlocked, which two iron lines attach to the chest, by means of two hanging locks, which are unlocked with two other keys: and these too the same Lords Rector and Prior brought forth, and so those two hanging locks too were opened. Then, the iron lines being removed and the board itself, there was found within a middling chest, on the outside clothed with Muscovite cowhide he takes one little rib, and studded with gold, with two locks; whose keys likewise being produced by the Lords Rector and Prior, the chest appeared within lined with blue silk; and there was found in it a written testimony, by which it is asserted that there are there the bones of the body of the glorious saint John of Sahagún, and under it was stretched a pall, covering the hollow of that chest, of red silk. Which pall when the Father Prior had lifted, there was found the skull with the bones of the holy body: whence the Prior, clad in sacred vestments, and having put his hands in there, brought forth one little rib of the holy body, and placed it within a walnut little box, lined within with red silk, and likewise without, and places it in a little box prepared for this. with golden borders, with which silk and borders is adorned also the lid of the aforesaid box of similar wood, which is bound with a white silken line. And the aforesaid little rib was wrapped in a silken cloth, a palm in length; but the box itself is long as the bone of the forearm to the wrist, and more than four fingers wide. This, closed, with the testimony of this act, the aforesaid Prior gave to the Reverend Father Fr. Antonino de Witte, who received it, to be carried to the Convent of Brussels.

[160] And of these things thus done, I the undersigned Scribe make faith, asked by both parties, the public faith of the deed being asked, on this present day, before the witnesses present at all the aforesaid, the Licentiate Don Pedro Casuso, Reviser of this city, and Lieutenant of the Corregidor; and Miguel de Canales, citizens of Salamanca … and it was subscribed, Diego Antonio Nieto de Cañate." And that this man is such as he says himself to be, five other Scribes of Salamanca affirm on the 15th of the month of September, Antonio Rodríguez de Zamora y Alba, Tomás Rodríguez de Zamora, Domingo Pérez Ruiz, Juan Forzen, and Ventura Fernando Chapero: to whom in turn faith of his legality is made by Pedro González Bretón, familiar and titular notary of the holy Office, under which the Archbishop of Mechlin approves the same in the year 1677. senior of the Notaries of Salamanca, one of the Twenty-four men of the royal Prison, chief Superintendent of the revenues of His royal Majesty, and of the Convent of the city. Which being exhibited to him, Alfonso de Berghes, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See Archbishop of Mechlin, Primate of Belgium, Apostolic Delegate to the royal Armies throughout Belgium, of the Council of State to His royal Majesty; "To all," he says, "who shall see these … we make known and attest; that we have opened the little box, expressed in the Act written above and well sealed; and in it we have found the rib of Blessed John of St. Facundus: which we have marked with our lesser seal, after we had in the presence of pious men recognized it to be a true Relic of the said Blessed John of St. Facundus; and we have permitted it as such to be able to be exposed to the public veneration of Christ's faithful, and by our ordinary authority throughout our diocese by the present we permit it. Given at Mechlin the 7th day of the month of May 1677, etc."

[161] Of that Relic thus approved a part (as I said) the Convent of Antwerp obtained, under the faith of the following instrument. Thence the Convent of Antwerp receives a part "In the name of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Be it known to all, who shall see these present, that in the year one thousand six hundred and ninety-one, and indeed on the second day of the month of May, in the convent of St. Apollonia of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine our Father of the city of Brussels, in the cell of the Very Reverend Father Antonino de Witte, lately Prior of the same convent, and Ex-Definitor of the General Chapter, but at present Definitor of his Belgic Province, and also Confessor to His Excellency the Lord Francisco Antonio de Agurto, most worthy Governor of Belgium for the King; there being convoked, me Hendrik Matheys, public Notary admitted by the supreme Council of Brabant, residing at Brussels, and the Noble Men, the Very Reverend and Most Ample Lord Guillaume François le Febure, Canon of the distinguished Collegiate church of Anderlecht, and Protonotary of the Apostolic See; and also the Most Ample and Very Noble Lord Jean Baptiste le Febure, Master and Counselor for the settlement by the Lords of the Finances of the accounts of the Army of His Catholic Majesty; with the instrument of donation as witnesses specially required; the said Reverend Father Antonino de Witte, personally constituted, showed to us three aforenamed a reliquary, in which was a whole rib of Blessed John of St. Facundus (as appears from the authentic instrument here annexed) obtained by himself at Salamanca, and approved by the Most Illustrious of Mechlin; and from that rib he cut off a part in our presence; which he wrapped in light red silk and cotton; and placed in a silvered box, which he set in another larger box, likewise silvered; placing also cotton between both, and closing the larger chest with a silken band of red color also: made in the year 1691 which we fortified with our three seals. And he said that he had taken the aforesaid part of the Relics from the said Reliquary, and had placed it in the said boxes in the manner and form aforesaid, by license of the Very Reverend and Excellent P. M. Joannes Smidts, Provincial of the said sacred Order through Flanders-Belgium; that he might transfer it to the Convent of Antwerp; there in the temple, at the Canonization of the same Divine John of St. Facundus, on the Sunday within the Octave of the Provincial Chapter and thereafter, with the approbation of the most Reverend and most Illustrious of Antwerp, to be exposed to public veneration in perpetuity, to the greater glory and honor of God, and of the same Saint and of his Order, and to the solace of the faithful. Of all which the said Very Reverend Father, for the perpetual memory of the matter, desired this public instrument to be made by me and handed to him; on the day, month, and year abovesaid, the witnesses above named being present there, etc."

[162] and it being recognized by the Ordinary The license moreover of exposing the aforesaid Relic thus gave Juan Fernando, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See Bishop of Antwerp … "Since the honors that are paid to the Saints redound to the glory of Almighty God and the utility of the whole Church; we rightly judge, that the things which conduce to the amplifying of their worship are to be promoted by us with singular zeal. We make known therefore and attest, that on the part of the Very Reverend Father Antonino de Witte, of the Order of the Friars Hermits of St. Augustine, at present Definitor of the Belgic Province, there was exhibited to us a silvered box, well closed, bound about with a red cord, and marked with the seal of the Very Reverend Lord Guillaume François le Febure, Canon of the distinguished Collegiate Church of Anderlecht and Protonotary of the Apostolic See; in which we found a part of the Relics of Blessed John of St. Facundus, taken namely from the greater part of the Rib of the same Blessed, it is permitted to be exposed. previously recognized and approved by the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Alfonso, Archbishop of Mechlin; as is established from the legitimate instrument, signed by the hand of a Notary; according to which we have judged the abovementioned part of the Relics to be recognized and approved as true and legal; as by the tenor of the present we recognize and approve; with the power of exposing the same throughout our Diocese, to the greater glory of God and of the same Saint and the solace of the faithful, to public veneration: in faith and strength of which, we have ordered that very part of the Relics to be fortified with our lesser seal impressed in Spanish wax, and the present, signed with our own hand, under our ordinary seal and the signature of our Secretary, to be expedited, at Antwerp in our Episcopal Palace. The 5th of May 1691."

[163] Thus far I had written, when there is brought to me a whole proper Office, in the Antiphons, Chapters, A new Office granted to the Order in the year 1693. Hymns, Responsories, and Lessons, even through the Octave, granted to the whole Augustinian Order under the rite of a Double of the 2nd Class, approved by the sacred Congregation of Rites on the 18th of April 1693, to which His Holiness assented on the 25th of the same, with this prayer for all the Hours and the Mass: "O God, author and lover of peace, who didst adorn Blessed John thy Confessor with a wonderful grace of composing those at variance; by his merits and intercession grant, that, established firm in divine charity, we may be torn away by no temptations from his integrity." The Gospel from Matthew 5, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you," with the Homily of St. Thomas of Villanova for the sixth weekday (Friday) after Ash Wednesday, divided through the whole Octave. For the 2nd Nocturn there is on the feast itself an elegant compendium of the Life, which, again more diffusely deduced, is recited and divided through the Octave; where I read, what I had not elsewhere found, that the Saint was born on the very day of the Lord's Precursor, on which account his name was imposed on him, not distinguishing the feasts of the Nativity and of the Beheading. This, however, I would rather believe, than what by the common opinion is written, that he died in the 49th year of his age, born in the 30th year of the same 15th century, since nevertheless the author, as if forgetful of himself, in Lesson V, orders to be read for the 25th of June, that the man, advanced in age, and marked with honorific titles in Theology, mourned among the novices with peculiar humility, modesty, and humility; whereas, by the birth-date now set down, he would have completed only the 32nd year of his age. Whether it would not be fitting that these be corrected, let it be the judgment of a higher judge, to whom we submit ourselves and all our opinions.