ON BLESSED BENVENUTO
OF THE ORDER OF MINORS, AT CORNETO IN APULIA.
ABOUT 1232
HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
On his approved cult, and an epitome of his life and miracles.
Benvenuto of Gubbio, at Corneto in Apulia, of the Order of Minors (S.)
BY D. P.
A double Corneto the Annals of the Seraphic Order, written by Wadding and abridged by Harold, record, the one not otherwise distinguished from the other there, A double Corneto than that the more ancient distribution of Provinces, from Bartholomew of Pisa in Harold at the year 1540, written about the year 1400, assigns Corneto to the Custody of Capitanata in the Province of S. Angelo in the last place; and to the Custody of Viterbo under the Roman Province in the third place, also a Corneto; which last, lest the Roman Fathers should abandon on account of the inclemency of the air, Julius II intervened, in the year 1506: and at the year 1291 Wadding says at number 12, not sufficiently distinguished by the authors. that there S. Francis recalled a dead boy to life: which Peter Rodulphius of Tossignano, on folio 85 of his Histories of the Seraphic Religion, seems to assign to the other place, when he says: Now Corneto is a town of Apulia, where the Blessed Father Francis freed a boy of eight years, Bartholomew by name, oppressed by an immense weight, and shattered by the lethal collision of a certain very great door, as if awakened from sleep: which words, while he transcribes them at the year 1232 number 18, Wadding either distinguished two boys or did not discriminate the places.
[2] In this one, which is among the Apulians, B. Benvenuto died, In this Corneto of Apulia, among the confines of the Melfi, Rapolla, and Venosa dioceses, mutually most near to one another, around the year 1232 B. Benvenuto is believed by Wadding to have died, for whose Canonization action was soon taken in the fourth year after; and by Pope Gregory IX the examination was committed to the Bishops of Melfi, Molfetta, and Venosa (the Bishop of Rapolla being then perhaps rejected as illegitimate), who indeed did not slothfully apply themselves to the work, says Wadding, and it is established from the Ninth Lection of the proper Office; but the turbulence of the time, he is permitted by the Apostolic See to be venerated and the weight of great affairs to be done, caused that the further re-treatment of this matter should be deferred. Meanwhile it was granted by the Pontiff (Marianus being witness) that in the three neighboring Bishoprics his feast should be celebrated, and that concerning him the divine Office should be recited. If these were taken from his life, they are still wanting: for those nine which we give below are of the miracles alone, and we found them at Naples among the Theatine Fathers of S. Paul among the Manuscript Collectanea of Antonius Caracciolus, in tome 1, On the Lives of the holy Confessors; from which we learn, that the Friars Minor of Corneto did indeed have a convent and a church of S. Antony; yet that Benvenuto was not entombed among them, as the man of Tossignano says, with the proper Lections which are here given. but that his sepulcher was in the Collegiate or at least Parochial church of S. Peter; unless perhaps some translation was made from here to there; concerning which, that nothing can now be known, the desolation of the place causes to be so great, that not only no traces remain, but not even the memory survives among the neighbors, as was written to us in the year 1676 by Ignatius Zacharias, then Rector of our College of Bari. But neither in the year 1516, when the later Distribution of Convents in Harold was written, did any such knowledge of a convent survive.
[3] The Brief of Gregory IX Wadding recites the Brief of Pope Gregory IX to the aforesaid Bishops thus: God is wonderful in His Saints, that He may marvelously manifest the power of His might, and may marvelously work the cause of our salvation; His faithful, whom He always crowns in heaven, He also frequently honors in the world; making signs and prodigies at their memorials, by which heretical depravity may be confounded, and the Catholic faith confirmed. We therefore render to almighty God as great thanksgivings as we can, though not as great as we ought, who in our days, for the confirmation of the Catholic faith, and the confusion of heretical depravity, evidently renews signs, and powerfully changes marvels; making those flash with miracles, who held the Catholic faith both in heart and in mouth, and also in work. For as our beloved Sons, the Clergy and People of Corneto, concerning his life and miracles have intimated to us through our beloved son Balsamus the Deacon, and Jacobus the Judge, their messengers, and by letters; and the letters of certain Bishops and Religious contained; the Lord has conferred so great glory upon Brother Benvenuto of pious memory, that
his sepulcher gives off so many and so great miracles, that it is unworthy that his suffrage be not invoked among the other Saints. Wherefore they have humbly supplicated us, that concerning the miracles, which the Lord works through him, we should cause testimonies to be received. But, ordering the Bishops to investigate, because in so holy a matter one must proceed only with due maturity and gravity; obtaining full confidence in your discretion in the Lord, we mandate, that, having called to yourselves religious men and those fearing God, most diligently inquiring concerning the virtue of his morals and the truth of the signs, namely the works and miracles, you keep the depositions of the witnesses received, sealed under your seals; that when you shall be required by us, you may faithfully transmit them to the Apostolic See, etc. Given at Viterbo on the 8th before the Kalends of April, in the tenth year.
[4] the Bishop of Melfi, The Bishop of Melfi then was perhaps Richerius, distinguished in doctrine and sanctity of life from the year 1213: who in the 24th year of that same century translated the Nuns of S. Benedict from a vast solitude, from the church of S. Venerius, to the church of S. John of Iliceto, Ughelli being witness, and held that see until Roger, ordained in the year 1252. I said "perhaps," in doubt, lest some other, hitherto unknown to us, intervened; just as in the see of Molfetta after John indicated for the year 1179, the Bishop of Molfetta, there doubtless sat several unknown to us before Richard, who died nearly a whole century after: who nonetheless could have given his attention to this examination, if he ruled that Church for more than thirty years. and the Bishop of Venosa. The Bishop of Venosa probably was that one, in fact and name Bonus, under whom the monastery of S. Francis, marked out by the Saint himself, arose; and who, under the above-praised Gregory IX, unjustly slain by a certain iniquitous Cleric, underwent a death similar to that of many Martyrs. The Process which they, or two of them, formed, to be sent to Rome, time seems to have abolished; now certainly it is nowhere found, nor is there anyone who indicates that he has seen it after Bartholomew of Pisa, in whose book of the Conformities of the life of S. Francis and of Christ, it is read thus abridged into a compendium on folio 86 and following.
[5] At Corneto lies Brother Benvenuto of Gubbio, most holy in life and astounding in signs. He was a layman, ignorant of letters: who, despising the things that are of the world, A synopsis of the virtues of Benvenuto from the Pisan, clung to the footsteps of B. Francis with all effort. Received into the Order, declaring the examples of his humility, by the command of B. Francis, he went to serve the lepers: whom, their abominations being cast behind, without complaint, as Christ, he served. He thus strove to ascend the summit of obedience, that to all the mandates of the Prelates he might obey untiring, and without delay and without complaint. In his infirmities, by which he was tried by the Lord, he strove both to have and to show patience beyond measure. He was a lover of most holy poverty and a zealot, scarcely requiring the extremes of food and clothing, a cultivator of silence, abounding with the bowels of piety upon the afflicted. He was given to prayer and contemplation, so that until the hour of Tierce he in no wise went out into public, lest by any occupation he should suffer his perfect delights to be the less changed. He so shone with the virtue of decency, that nothing dishonorable in word or deed or sign was ever detected of him. And these things as to the first part of the commanded examination; which same things, only the phrase being changed, and from Wadding, Tossignano and Wadding have at the year 1222 number 21: but the latter (probably from Marianus) adorns him with the title of Knight, and attributes to him so great a gift of tears, that he prayed weeping whole nights through: and adds: He venerated the most sacred Eucharist with all affection, and truly found God hidden under the veil; since from that same most august Sacrament there came forth many times a beautiful little infant, and offered itself to his arms to be sweetly embraced.
[6] As to the second part of the Process, the same Pisan sets before us these things concerning it: likewise some of the miracles, His sanctity is established by the miracles divinely worked through him: concerning which signs there is no need to hesitate, since by the Apostolic Bull directed by D. Gregory IX in 1236 they were collected, examined, and authenticated by the Bishops of Melfi and Venosa. Two dead men he raised, two he freed from the jaws of death; four epileptics, two lepers, two demoniacs, one from quinsy, seven contracted and withered ones. Three blind he illumined, to three deaf he gave hearing, to two dropsical and ungrateful ones he granted health. From infirmities he rescued two, one mute, a woman grievously ulcerated in the breast, five with gout and abscesses. To Brother John of Altopascio, he indicated, by appearing to him, where the money he had lost was to be found. Brother Giles of the Order of Minors, from a temptation of the flesh, by appearing to him and girding him with his own girdle, he freed. From locusts he rescued a field full of cumin, commended to him by a certain man; and many other or more miracles this Saint performed. Most of these, in a somewhat more cultivated phrase, Wadding also hands down at the year 1232 number 18, but premises in particular two from Tossignano, who probably followed Marianus, in these words:
[7] Amillina of Corneto had been smitten with the disease of leprosy, her eyebrows, wholly denuded of hairs, were bald, and especially two of them. and her eyes were darkened by humor flowing from them: her voice sounded with hoarseness, and her nails were falling from her fingers, whence she had become an object of the greatest horror to all. From which, hope being conceived at the prayers of B. Benvenuto while still living, soon, after he died, being carried to his tomb, joining her hand to the hand of S. Benvenuto, she began, the impediment of the body gradually departing, to be freed, and thus she escaped unharmed. Torta of Corneto, having suffered a contraction of the legs, and made mad by the anguish of pain, freed by the merits of the Saint, returned to her own home. William Forzedis, passing the nights for three days, was restored to his former health. These things there, Hence somehow the year of death is had of which the first, if it was taken from the mouth of Amillina herself, when cured, by the examiners, renders us sufficiently certain, that the conjecture of Wadding, who places the death of Benvenuto around the year 1233, has come most near to the truth. Would that with equally certain proof Arthur of Monastery in his Franciscan Martyrology had chosen this 27th day of June: which nonetheless we retain, but not so the day of his cult. until a more certain knowledge of the true day should emerge, I know not whence to be hoped, if it be not given at Melfi, where Marcus of Lisbon writes in his Chronicles of the Minors, part 2, book 1, chapter 9, treating of this servant of God, that the feast is solemnly celebrated by the Clergy and people.
[8] He says also that a beautiful church was built to him at the same Corneto, but which together with the town was afterward destroyed: and going on further, The Clerics, he says, of Iliceto took away from the aforesaid church one arm of B. Benvenuto, and a little after found the vessel, in which they had placed it, full of a most fragrant liquor: yet the aforesaid Relic remained hidden on account of the enmity which prevailed between the Cornetans and the Ilicetans, belonging under the title of a Priory to the Knights of Jerusalem of S. John of Rhodes. Meanwhile there were shown and held in great veneration two linen cloths dyed with that miraculous liquor, at whose contact also several miracles are wrought. But his holy body was found in this manner. A certain Blasius, a noble man sent by the Duke of Melfi to search for it, when by night he was bent upon prayers, and was beseeching the Blessed one, that he would reveal to him where in that convent and desolate church his holy Relics could be found; there appeared to him a humble Religious, and said: I am Brother Benvenuto, who have heard thy prayers: go to the church, and where thou shalt find a plant of woolly mullein greener than the other herbs, there know that thou shalt find what thou desirest; and that thou mayest transfer it elsewhere, I command. Said, done: he found the desired treasure, and reverently took it up, and carried it to Iliceto, where it is now honored by the inhabitants. So he, in the year 1613.
MIRACLES
Long since distributed into IX Lections. From the Manuscript sheets of Antonius Caracciolus.
Benvenuto of Gubbio, at Corneto in Apulia, of the Order of Minors (S.)
BHL Number: 1150
FROM THE MS.
[1] This Blessed Saint, flashing with the light of miracles, raised the dead in this manner. A certain Knight of Corneto, Turellus A boy born by vow, by name, seeing that his wife Bellucea had now borne him seven daughters, vowed to S. Benvenuto, to whom he was very devoted; that if his spouse should bear the masculine sex, he should be called by no name but Benvenuto's. And because the father did not care to impose the name of the Saint on the one born according to the merit of the vow, the little one was made in his whole body so pustulous, that the parents deferred to baptize him on account of the enormous pustules. At length on a certain night, when the mother, for the sake of nursing, had placed the infant at her side, and he, being neglected, died without baptism, falling asleep, by incautious keeping the boy fell from the bed upon a board, and, no one seeing, expired. But the father, as if roused by another, while solicitously he seeks the boy in the cradle and finds him not; rouses the mother, diligently inquiring of her where she had placed the little one.
[2] But she, finding the cradle empty, rose groaning with her husband; and being carried to the sepulcher of the Saint, and seeking their son with a light, they found him upon the boarding next to the wall, bloody and likewise dead. Grieving therefore at a chance so mournful, they convoke kinsmen and friends, about to seek counsel concerning the burial of the deceased, because he had not been a Christian. Who coming, and rebuking the father who had not had the little one baptized, counseled, that the dead one should be buried without the honor of sepulture. The father, esteeming their counsel of little worth, carried the dead one, his kinsmen mocking, to the Church of S. Peter, a and placing him upon the sepulcher of the Saint, cried out tearfully, saying; S. Benvenuto, unless thou restore to me my son alive, whom I have carried to thee dead, I will not care to serve thee henceforth. Some, compassionating his grief, prostrate on the ground, supplicated the Saint of God with tears, that he would raise the son for the father. While these were praying and groaning, he is resuscitated: and the Friars were ringing for Matins in the Church of S. Antony, the dead one gave forth a small voice, made alive by divine grace. But the parents and the other bystanders, with great joy carrying back the resuscitated little one, the boy being baptized, and named by the Saint's name, presented to God and to S. Benvenuto, rendered due thanksgivings for so marvelous a benefit.
[3] A certain girl of three years, daughter of a certain Knight of Corneto who was called Alpherius, likewise a girl fallen into a well, at the time of the vintage fell into a well: whom the abundance of waters suffocated. A certain man called Cornetus, at that time b Constable, roused by the voices of those crying out on account of the chance, ran to the well, which was in the hedge of his brother's vineyard: and, made ignorant of the mournful chance, swiftly descended to the well, that he might free the girl from the peril of submersion. But descending, he found the girl dead under the waters; and groaning, drawing her out, he placed her in the garden of Peregrinus the Judge. And while he was deliberating, with the bystanders, about the burial of the girl, and about summoning the parents, who were not present; mindful of the new benefits,
which the Lord at that time was working through the merits of S. Benvenuto, they with one accord supplicated the same Saint, with tears and sighs, for the resuscitation of the girl. and thence drawn out dead. Their supplications being heard, the girl gave a tearful voice, showing herself freed from death by the Lord. But the said Lord, together with the bystanders and the parents, who had come groaning, leading the girl to the sepulcher of S. Benvenuto; thus received her alive, that, with great jubilation of praises, a concourse of the people and the ringing of bells, the girl returned to her own home on her own feet, with the whole aforesaid company.
[4] Gilbert of Corneto, when he was leading a cart laden with stones to the work of the fabric of S. Peter, Fallen under a laden cart he is not crushed: in which the body of S. Benvenuto rests; the oxen wandering and running about through unaccustomed places, because, sitting on the pole of the cart, he could not sustain the onset of the oxen, in the very fall he invoked the name of S. Benvenuto, the said Lord and others perceiving his fall; at his invocation he was soon freed from the peril of death, although the wheel of the cart had passed despairingly over his back. Roger Forbilla, a Knight, coming with many others to the said fabric with two carts, to convey the stones of the said fabric, left one of the carts laden with stones on the top of the mountain, and deputed a youth to the guard of it.
[5] But when Roger himself with his companions, in the carrying out of a certain great stone for the altar, was crying out with great voices; the incautious youth, others to be crushed by a similar cart the horse and cart being left, went that he might help those laboring in the extraction of the said stone. But the horse, provoked by the neighings of the beasts, which were pasturing in the valley, letting itself down from the top of the mountain with the cart toward the valley, was borne headlong over the laboring men; who, as if placed in a strait, not being able to decline to the left or right the peril of death, which threatened them from the passage of the cart; with tears together cried out: S. Benvenuto, help us: soon the cart in the midst of the precipice stood still, as if a wall had been made to meet it; are freed, and the little tubes, to which the straps, by which the cart is drawn, adhered, springing back, the horse came out from the poles unhurt. But those men, rejoicing together at so great a benefit, came with all devotion to the sepulcher of the Saint, to render immense praises to God and to him for the miracle of so great a liberation.
[6] A certain boy, son of a Knight, sitting upon an ass, thus incautiously met a cart, which a horse was drawing, laden with grain, coming headlong; so that the wheels rushed upon the ass; likewise a boy under the wheel one of which passed through the boy's legs. But the boy crying out with the bystanders, S. Benvenuto, succor, the driver, believing him dead, fled for fear. But to those wishing to lift the boy from under the wheels as if dead, the little boy said: Do not fear, for S. Benvenuto, when we invoked him, freed me. But rising unharmed, before he returned to his own home, he went on his own feet to the sepulcher of S. Benvenuto, to render thanks for the benefit of so great a liberation. Henry, son of Nicholas Pallanus c of Scalea, drawn half-alive from under a beam, which also fell from the arch of the tribune, of the church of S. Peter, and another under a fallen beam: while he is carried to the sepulcher of S. Benvenuto, all who stood by praying, immediately recovered health.
[7] The son of John Ferrarius of the Castle d of S. Agatha, during the anniversary solemnity of S. Benvenuto, fallen from a tree going to cut off branches from the trees, for making shades in the square of the church of S. Peter: under his feet a branch of the lofty tree, which he had climbed, being broken, holding himself by another little branch, he cried out with his companions, saying, S. Benvenuto, help me; rises without harm. but when he wished to descend, falling by the tension of the aforesaid little branch, he so vehemently struck his breast against a certain stake, rising a little from the ground, that the bystanders utterly despaired of his life. But he, by the merits of the Saint immediately rising, without any hurt re-ascended the tree unharmed, continuing the cutting of the branches, as he had begun.
[8] Salubria of Corneto, wearied for five years with the falling sickness, The epileptics are healed, going to the obsequies of S. Benvenuto, heard from Heaven one saying to her: Say, He is a Saint, He is a Saint; at whose hearing, commending herself to the Saint, she was freed from her sickness. Bella Suguerra of Corneto, laboring with a similar disease for six years, because she did like Salubria, was rewarded with a like remedy. Bella of Corneto, similarly wearied, while she prays before the body of the Saint, was freed. The son of Stillantia of Corneto, tormented daily by a similar disease for ten years, on a certain day on account of the disease fell from the upper story into the cellar, and his Head was so terribly broken in the manner of a cross, that the horror of his fall associated his mother in his infirmity for five years: but both coming to the sepulcher of the Saint, are alike freed. Margaret of Ordona, molested for six years by a similar disease, when she vowed, that if by the merits of S. Benvenuto she should be freed, she would cause his image f to be painted, and place it before his sepulcher to his memory, is immediately freed.
[9] Amelina of g Molfetta, full of leprosy, coming to the Church of S. Peter, two lepers, while she draws the hand of the Saint over the members of her Body, is restored to her former health. A like grace received the son of Jovennis the woman, doing as Amelina did. Benemajuta, the deaf, deaf for three years, drawing the foot of the Saint over her ears, recovered hearing, feeling a strong wind going out from her ears. Ata of Molfetta, praying before the sepulcher of the Saint, is freed from the deafness which she had suffered for one year and three months. But to her neighbors congratulating her on her liberation, when she said to her mother that she would rather be dropsical than be molested by the frequentings of her neighbors; soon she is made dropsical as she vowed. But coming to the sepulcher of the Saint, because she repented, she is freed a second time. When therefore her mother proposed to her, that it would be objected against her, unless she should appear before the Bishops, and the dropsical. who were examining the Miracles of the Saint; while she insolently answers, that she would in no way appear, on the following night she suffers a sickness so grievous, that, morning being come, repentant she went to the Bishops freed. Likewise Euglielmus Jogitanus is freed from dropsy, while he discharges the vow which he had vowed to the Saint of God.